Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
Obviously not every Remainer is a Europhile, but many of the most vocal are. They attribute things to the EU that have little to do with it, a perennial favourite of mine being European peace, somehow they forget the very existence of NATO.
NATO and the EU are a very powerful combination. As close as we’ve been able to manage on this side of the Atlantic to the American dream.
One guarantees freedom from (largely Russian) imperialistic tyranny; the other promises economic development and the opportunity to travel freely for work and leisure. The post Soviet era without both would have been much less successful for Eastern Europe. Look at Poland and the Baltics, and now even the troubled Balkans, to see the dynamic in action.
Security independence outside NATO is a dead end for Europe as the current war has shown. Economic independence outside the EU is a drag on prosperity for integrated European economies like Britain as our trade stats have shown.
Europe has no security independence inside NATO as that organisation is dominated by the US. Poland had to check with Biden if they could give Fulcrums to Ukraine and the answer was 'no'.
I agree with the premise that Rejoin or Not Brexit is not the solution to all British ills.
It does indeed risk being seen as a magic bullets.
The connection is that in order to address British economic issues you have to be realistic and the same mindset naturally results in one realising that Brexit was a fucking disaster.
I will come with you as far as saying that people (those wonderful things) in various different capacities, have made the process up until now far more difficult than many anticipated, and in my view far more difficult than it needed to be.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
Obviously not every Remainer is a Europhile, but many of the most vocal are. They attribute things to the EU that have little to do with it, a perennial favourite of mine being European peace, somehow they forget the very existence of NATO.
I voted Remain *despite* despising the EU and many of its works.
Part of the problem was the methodology used by the U.K. in Europe. Blair gave up the rebate, for a vague promise of a review of the Common Agricultural policy. When he asked about it, Chirac told him that he was “Ill mannered” for bringing the subject up.
The issue was the belief that by sacrificing things, we would get Brownie points that we could cash in.
What should have been done was a deal on the CAP vs Rebate, so that after Chirac’s little bon mot, someone in the EU would have asked about the rebate. And been told that it was ill mannered for them to ask. That’s how the game is played.
It's a game a majority no longer wanted to play. Thank you for asking.
Those playing the game were very happily doing so without allowing the voters a say. Some were doing very nicely out of it. You can tell how well in that after 6 years, they still haven't stopped squealing like stuck pigs.
Now nobody is doing nicely.
I'm doing very nicely. I no longer have Nigel Farage holding sway over me from Brussels.
Obviously not every Remainer is a Europhile, but many of the most vocal are. They attribute things to the EU that have little to do with it, a perennial favourite of mine being European peace, somehow they forget the very existence of NATO.
I voted Remain *despite* despising the EU and many of its works.
Part of the problem was the methodology used by the U.K. in Europe. Blair gave up the rebate, for a vague promise of a review of the Common Agricultural policy. When he asked about it, Chirac told him that he was “Ill mannered” for bringing the subject up.
The issue was the belief that by sacrificing things, we would get Brownie points that we could cash in.
What should have been done was a deal on the CAP vs Rebate, so that after Chirac’s little bon mot, someone in the EU would have asked about the rebate. And been told that it was ill mannered for them to ask. That’s how the game is played.
It's a game a majority no longer wanted to play. Thank you for asking.
Those playing the game were very happily doing so without allowing the voters a say. Some were doing very nicely out of it. You can tell how well in that after 6 years, they still haven't stopped squealing like stuck pigs.
Now nobody is doing nicely.
I'm doing very nicely. I no longer have Nigel Farage holding sway over me from Brussels.
He would say he had no sway.
Does only turning up to collect the lunch allowance count as sway? Does not even bothering to participate in parliamentary votes count as sway?
Marquee Mark needs to elaborate on these fantasies that were troubling him.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
The problem with doing away with pen pushers is well known yet is ignored every time, since rather than determine how much pen pushing is needed, we just cut them arbitrarily, getting rid of the needed and unneeded since quick wins are needed. The results are entirely predictable and we complain about doctors doing paperwork and hire more pen pushers.
Everyone who has worked with the NHS knows its bureaucracy is tortured and confusing even for a large bureaucracy, but we all know simple fixes won't work. It wouldn't have got to this point if it were simple.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
If I recall correctly, it was @williamglenn who said Brexit was literally "impossible", after the vote to Leave
Obviously not every Remainer is a Europhile, but many of the most vocal are. They attribute things to the EU that have little to do with it, a perennial favourite of mine being European peace, somehow they forget the very existence of NATO.
NATO and the EU are a very powerful combination. As close as we’ve been able to manage on this side of the Atlantic to the American dream.
One guarantees freedom from (largely Russian) imperialistic tyranny; the other promises economic development and the opportunity to travel freely for work and leisure. The post Soviet era without both would have been much less successful for Eastern Europe. Look at Poland and the Baltics, and now even the troubled Balkans, to see the dynamic in action.
Security independence outside NATO is a dead end for Europe as the current war has shown. Economic independence outside the EU is a drag on prosperity for integrated European economies like Britain as our trade stats have shown.
Europe has no security independence inside NATO as that organisation is dominated by the US. Poland had to check with Biden if they could give Fulcrums to Ukraine and the answer was 'no'.
It is dominated by the US because no one else is willing (or able?) to spend the necessary amounts of hard cash to actually defend Europe. Security Independence is great so long as you are willing to actually pay for it. Most European countries are not, even now.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
That seems to be a modification of your position, which I welcome.
Regardless of the merits, or otherwise, of Brexit, would you accept that it has taken up so much government bandwidth over the last six years that politicians have been totally distracted from tackling the deep-seated problems to which you refer?
Other than Covid, which was unavoidable, nothing has distracted the government from analysing and resolving our problems more than Brexit.
I agree with that. The whole indicative votes process was a total disaster. All that did was eliminate virtual every sensible option leaving us with a threadbare deal and a screwed-up Nortern Ireland settlement. It's fairly obvious to me that people want a better deal, but it must exclude EU membership of any form and freedom of movement, almost anything else is up for debate and would be acceptable by the UK public. Fat chance of Parliament of any of our political parites actually delivering that though. If anything we are more likely to see another In/Out Brexit war.
Why must it "exclude EU membership" and who are you to determine what is "acceptable by the UK public". Brexit was a mistake and now more and more people are recognising that. Surely it must be possible for the country to change its mind.
Here's what people actually think when asked in detail. Only one third of people want to be in the Single Market. All I'm doing is taking their views into account.
I don't see how anyone rational can read the results of that survey and think "people really want to rejoin the EU".
Polls are mixed right now , often depending on the phrasing of the question and options given.
However I think the backlash against Brexit has hardly got started yet. If the most recent "right/wrong to leave" tracker is to be believed only 19% of under 50s now believe we were right to leave (v 66% wrong). Support for Brexit is largely being sustained by OAPs.
There is only one way this is going unless some amazing rabbits are pulled out of the hat and there has been precious little sign of that from the Brexit governments we have suffered through so far.
The problem with doing away with pen pushers is well known yet is ignored every time, since rather than determine how much pen pushing is needed, we just cut them arbitrarily, getting rid of the needed and unneeded since quick wins are needed. The results are entirely predictable and we complain about doctors doing paperwork and hire more pen pushers.
Everyone who has worked with the NHS knows its bureaucracy is tortured and confusing even for a large bureaucracy, but we all know simple fixes won't work. It wouldn't have got to this point if it were simple.
I think this is the key point. If you want to reduce costs in any organisation you need to target processes not people. The bigger the organisation the more true this is. If you concentrate on streamlining and optimising processes then as a rule you will reduce the headcount as a result. But all Governments and too many businesses start from the position of reducing headcount and then trying to get the processes to fit.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
As far as I know they were introduced (or possible) before the large scale migration, so band aids is not quite right.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
It's a bizarre argument isn't it. The EU single market is to blame for us being a low wage low skill economy. And yet the EU single market is home to many of the world's most successful high wage high skill economies.
I think this is the key point. If you want to reduce costs in any organisation you need to target processes not people. The bigger the organisation the more true this is. If you concentrate on streamlining and optimising processes then as a rule you will reduce the headcount as a result. But all Governments and too many businesses start from the position of reducing headcount and then trying to get the processes to fit.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
What’s the Dutch excuse then?
A far lower level of immigration than us, and much, much lower from the developing world.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
It's a bizarre argument isn't it. The EU single market is to blame for us being a low wage low skill economy. And yet the EU single market is home to many of the world's most successful high wage high skill economies.
Quite. Brexit was hatched in around 1990 by business interests, precisely because many ultra-Thatcherites were worried that the EU threatened exactly the model Thatcher had developed of a low-wage, low-regulation, low-investment and financialised economy.
This was three years before Alan Sked and his sovereignty arguments, which were rooted in a legal and governmental suspicion of the Italians.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
Discussing pay increases whilst ignoring how the increases are more than eroded by inflation is pointless.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
If I recall correctly, it was @williamglenn who said Brexit was literally "impossible", after the vote to Leave
Yes @williamglenn was one of the calmest, analytical and most informative post-vote Remainers on PB.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
It's a bizarre argument isn't it. The EU single market is to blame for us being a low wage low skill economy. And yet the EU single market is home to many of the world's most successful high wage high skill economies.
The EU as a whole is a low wage, low skill economies. More so than the UK.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
As far as I know they were introduced (or possible) before the large scale migration, so band aids is not quite right.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
It certainly wasn’t planned. Just happened. Blair honestly believed that next to no one would enter the U.K. as a result of free movement. So suddenly, needed more band aids…
If suddenly we had a mad baby boom and every woman in the country started having 3 children, many of the same problems would have cropped up.
Fundamentally, many structures and policies were built around a slowly increasing population.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
If I recall correctly, it was @williamglenn who said Brexit was literally "impossible", after the vote to Leave
It might be worth examining that statement as it is really the point I have been making for most of this thread
Can Britain exist outside the EU? Obviously, yes. We are doing it.
Can Britain stay the 5th largest economy after Brexit? Umm, no.
Can the London Stock Exchange keep its place in the World order after Brexit? Umm, no.
Can Britain maintain its Global aid commitments after Brexit? Umm, no.
The answer to the question, can the post-Brexit Britain maintain the place on the Global stage enjoyed by the pre-Brexit Britain, the answer is sadly, no. That was impossible...
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
As far as I know they were introduced (or possible) before the large scale migration, so band aids is not quite right.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
It certainly wasn’t planned. Just happened. Blair honestly believed that next to no one would enter the U.K. as a result of free movement. So suddenly, needed more band aids…
If suddenly we had a mad baby boom and every woman in the country started having 3 children, many of the same problems would have cropped up.
Fundamentally, many structures and policies were built around a slowly increasing population.
Even if you put all the unique challenges to immigration to one side (majority ESL classes in schools etc.), the common population challenges are worse for immigration. Because immigration clusters in urban centres, especially London, creating a lot more congestion, whereas fertility rate increases spread around the whole country.
Conservative Democrats doesn't really work for the list of neo-cons who have followed that thread trail; Oakshott, Farage and Grimes. My idea of Conservative Democrats would be Heath, Pym, Hezza, Major, Gaulke and Spreadsheet.
Oakshott, Farage and Grimes could go under the banner of MEGA (Make England Great Again). It works better.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
So will
- redistributing money from workers to pensioners - hugely raising taxes on companies - taking money from productive regions like the South East to keep workers in the North East or Northern Ireland on the dole - subsidising low-skill, low productivity industries like farming - borrowing to give money we don't have to hand it out to third world dumps.
All sadly happening under this nominally Conservative and Brexiteer, but in fact Brownite and BINO, government.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
As far as I know they were introduced (or possible) before the large scale migration, so band aids is not quite right.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
It certainly wasn’t planned. Just happened. Blair honestly believed that next to no one would enter the U.K. as a result of free movement. So suddenly, needed more band aids…
If suddenly we had a mad baby boom and every woman in the country started having 3 children, many of the same problems would have cropped up.
Fundamentally, many structures and policies were built around a slowly increasing population.
Even if you put all the unique challenges to immigration to one side (majority ESL classes in schools etc.), the common population challenges are worse for immigration. Because immigration clusters in urban centres, especially London, creating a lot more congestion, whereas fertility rate increases spread around the whole country.
Maybe. I think the challenges would be different, but equally…. Challenging….
I do remember when Blair proposed to handle homelessness* among immigrants/asylum seekers by sending them to parts of the country where property was cheaper and more available than London. Apparently housing people in the suburbs of Glasgow was against their human rights - according to some.
*homelessness of the “got a room or two in a shitty hostel/hotel” kind
Conservative Democrats doesn't really work for the list of neo-cons who have followed that thread trail; Oakshott, Farage and Grimes. My idea of Conservative Democrats would be Heath, Pym, Hezza, Major, Gaulke and Spreadsheet.
Oakshott, Farage and Grimes could go under the banner of MEGA (Make England Great Again). It works better.
Since when was Farage a neocon? He's a Putin sympathizer...
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
They were a somewhat stupid set of band aids for the effects of economic migration. This is not because of economic migration being EVUL! - but like all large scale demographic changes, it has effects.
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
As far as I know they were introduced (or possible) before the large scale migration, so band aids is not quite right.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
It certainly wasn’t planned. Just happened. Blair honestly believed that next to no one would enter the U.K. as a result of free movement. So suddenly, needed more band aids…
If suddenly we had a mad baby boom and every woman in the country started having 3 children, many of the same problems would have cropped up.
Fundamentally, many structures and policies were built around a slowly increasing population.
Even if you put all the unique challenges to immigration to one side (majority ESL classes in schools etc.), the common population challenges are worse for immigration. Because immigration clusters in urban centres, especially London, creating a lot more congestion, whereas fertility rate increases spread around the whole country.
But urban areas voted against Brexit. It was small towns and rural areas that were most in favour, areas with much less population pressure.
Conservative Democrats doesn't really work for the list of neo-cons who have followed that thread trail; Oakshott, Farage and Grimes. My idea of Conservative Democrats would be Heath, Pym, Hezza, Major, Gaulke and Spreadsheet.
Oakshott, Farage and Grimes could go under the banner of MEGA (Make England Great Again). It works better.
Since when was Farage a neocon? He's a Putin sympathizer...
I was being polite. I thought the use of the "f" word might offend.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
I have never said it was impossible.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
If I recall correctly, it was @williamglenn who said Brexit was literally "impossible", after the vote to Leave
@williamglenn is always someone I've really liked because he's able to lucidly and intelligently argue a point from any angle, and make you think.
He's also consistently polite and measured, and funny, something most of us can only dream of.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
So will
- redistributing money from workers to pensioners - hugely raising taxes on companies - taking money from productive regions like the South East to keep workers in the North East or Northern Ireland on the dole - subsidising low-skill, low productivity industries like farming - borrowing to give money we don't have to hand it out to third world dumps.
All sadly happening under this nominally Conservative and Brexiteer, but in fact Brownite and BINO, government.
July 2022 figures. Latest. London unemployment 4.2% (a record low). NE 4.7% (the highest in the country). Hardly a significant difference.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
Stopping house building became a near religious issue on left and right.
Another issue is that councils see people as an expense. If councils were fully funded from the people living there, their attitude would be different - more people would be more money, automatically
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
The inner savage in me would have bought one of those grenade shaped lighters they sell to the deeply weird, and wedged it under the lid….
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
Next time a spring loaded pen knife? Nothing fatal.
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
If you caught her as the bell stopped ringing, was she a bell end?
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
Next time a spring loaded pen knife? Nothing fatal.
I asked her where she lived, and whilst still in surprise at my sudden appearance at the door, she told me. So I doubt there will be a reoccurrence.
If that's a genuine poster, I hope they run with it because "Keep Brexit Done" is absolutely pathetic from a marketing point of view. It's funny too because they probably think they are propaganda whizzkids. Yep, "Get Brexit Done" in 2019 was a powerful slogan, and "Keep Brexit Done" in 2022-24 is idiotic. I guess you actually have to have some understanding of stuff to realise why both of those can be true.
Britain left the EU on 31 Jan 2020. Let's keep the country in the great condition it's been in these past three years thanks to the exit. Let's not endanger all the progress that's been made. Fantastic campaigning line. Shows real understanding of how people live and how they feel about it.
Boris Johnson looks like he's hitchhiking. Didn't the ex-KGB oligarch arrange his travel back to one of his homes after the party?
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
Stopping house building became a near religious issue on left and right.
Another issue is that councils see people as an expense. If councils were fully funded from the people living there, their attitude would be different - more people would be more money, automatically
What you describe are two symptoms of the same issue: a country governed to an extreme extent from inside Treasury.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
The land banking is in response to the “planning and development” anti-system.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
The land banking is in response to the “planning and development” anti-system.
As is the grip of large corporations on development. When something is slow, expensive and has a long legal process, you have given a massive advantage to big companies.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
The land banking is in response to the “planning and development” anti-system.
As is the grip of large corporations on development. When something is slow, expensive and has a long legal process, you have given a massive advantage to big companies.
Absolutely.
The system has created an effective oligopoly, because only large developers have the capital to manage the risk and timescales.
The downstream effect is lots of Barratt hutches that people rightly object to, and no self-build sector worth the name.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
The uk now faces a higher cost of money in terms of interest rates and higher commodity prices. This is a reversal of the trends since 1980 and means we will inevitably become poorer...perhaps the correct attitude to adopt is the same as under communism...each year will be worse than the last so just enjoy the now
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
The uk now faces a higher cost of money in terms of interest rates and higher commodity prices. This is a reversal of the trends since 1980 and means we will inevitably become poorer...perhaps the correct attitude to adopt is the same as under communism...each year will be worse than the last so just enjoy the now
The problem with Communism was that the 'now' was miserable as well. Hence the joke about optimists and pessimists.
On eternal life, I do wonder if the billionaire-cryogenic phenomenon isn't just a expression of the modern extreme fear of the - I would say incorrect - idea that eternal life isn't possible.
Quite the opposite, I believe. Mainstream cryogenic theory says you are just freezing to bridge the awkward gap between now, and proper immortality treatment becoming available. When it does, you thaw and get the treatment. It's like the early Christians not being sure whether the second coming would be in their lifetimes or whether they would have to do the whole death and resurrection thing.
If we have any biologists in, what are the precedents for any biological organism living forever ? For me the issue would be loss of faith in our cultural inheritance, in modern scientific terms yet to be proven that we have another essence ( possibly a quantum field ) that moves from one place to another. This is well outside current orthodoxy ofcourse, but a number of physicists around the edges are increasingly interested in the possibility. As mentioned earlier, one often finds the greatest openness to these ideas among physicists, at the moment, in line with Einstein's openness.
Ah, a believer in Religion Without Sky Faeries.
Penrose wants to be a hard core non-believer but can’t give up the idea that humans are special.
There are plenty of organisms that live a lot longer than we do.
Penrose is an interesting one, isn't he. He thinks that the brain may harbour quantum microtubules, and a number of physicists are interested too.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
I think that was included as part of the issue with the planning system. NIMBYism is a major contributor, but the land banking which the system incentivizes further (it can lead to planning policies being afforded less weight as targets are not met, making permission outside plan areas easier) is very significant too.
But it is all part of the messed up nature of how the system operates.
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
Next time a spring loaded pen knife? Nothing fatal.
I asked her where she lived, and whilst still in surprise at my sudden appearance at the door, she told me. So I doubt there will be a reoccurrence.
It is hard to hold the upper hand in an interaction with a stranger when you're holding a bag of dog poop.
“These reports are categorically untrue. This Government is focussed on using our Brexit freedoms to create opportunities that drive growth and strengthen our economy. 1/2
“Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardise the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.” 2/2
But doesn’t really address problem that a “senior government figure” quite clearly told the Sunday Times it was being considered.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context.
THe Russians are the people who invaded their neighbour for no reason, going on a killing, raping and looting spree, use soldiers who model themselves on the SS, have fired missiles indiscriminately hitting every part of Ukraine and threatening Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, and who captured several nuclear plants cutting them off from the grid and placing explosives around the core? Right?
I agree though that there is a need for a more positive campaign to Rejoin, not just a desire to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust.
The requirement to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust is a necessary but not sufficient condition if we want to avoid doing it all over again.
A methodology that puts off any kind of improvement.
Because grinding peoples faces into the dust doesn’t make them more stubborn. Not at all.
What you actually want to do is to build a political movement of people in favour of Europe. When you have a nice big majority of those, you’ll get rejoin.
You won’t get rejoin because Starmer does a whipped vote on day 1 for rejoin. He won’t commit political suicide for you.
That's not the point.
I want to get (back) to a point where a politician like Nigel Fucking Farage is laughed off the stage instead of being feted on every platform for spouting spurious bullshit.
I want a politician who says with a straight face "We have had enough of experts" expunged.
I want journalists and broadcasters to once again presents facts, not presents opinions as equivalent.
The requirement to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust is a necessary but not sufficient condition for that.
I hope the same thing happens to the SNP in Scotland.
You are wrong regarding the grinding of faces, but the rest is on the right track.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
No-one here apart from me probably listens to R4, but this morning David Goodhart, who coined the "somewheres" and "anywheres" dichotomy, had the Point of View slot after the Sunday service. He points out that there's really hardly anything between the main parties in terms of policies. Brexit has made us more democratic and we have achieved a better balance between anywheres and somewheres. The dominant anywhere establishment on the right and the left had built an economy around their interests. He reckons that the anywhere agenda remains the default but has been diluted since Brexit. Despite all he thinks that our politics is now better balanced, even though it is stuck in the morass and we need more vision from our politicians. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001f5kt
I've told the story before of a Chinese seminar where I was asked whether most people in Britain actually feel they are being given a meaningful choice. For many it's more like choosing football teams to back - they have a preference but it's not based on any detailed policy differences.
The trouble is that, as we saw with Truss and (narrowly) Corbyn, people don't like radical alternatives. They're more comfortable with tootling along with something roughly like the present, only better managed and with more help for people like themselves. Generally that instinct is right - history is littered with disasters of people seizing radical alternatives. But occasionally the consensus will simply be wrong and we'll be stuck in a rut for too long.
The answer for your Chinese should have been that it is less about the choice than in the behaviour of and incentives for those who are chosen or unchosen.
And the question posed in the other direction - how do you kick out the Pooh lookalike if you get well fed up with him ?
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Accidents will happen.
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
“These reports are categorically untrue. This Government is focussed on using our Brexit freedoms to create opportunities that drive growth and strengthen our economy. 1/2
“Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardise the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.” 2/2
But doesn’t really address problem that a “senior government figure” quite clearly told the Sunday Times it was being considered.
“These reports are categorically untrue. This Government is focussed on using our Brexit freedoms to create opportunities that drive growth and strengthen our economy. 1/2
“Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardise the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.” 2/2
But doesn’t really address problem that a “senior government figure” quite clearly told the Sunday Times it was being considered.
'Senior government figure'? We're surely talking about an acolyte of Boris here. If he can stir up the ERG enough to devour Rishi, then that would be the ideal scenario for the comeback.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Accidents will happen.
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
The Sirius Report just as a name suggests batshit insanity, and a glance confirms the first impression. Enthusiasts for multipolarity which seems to mean the demise of the great Satan.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Accidents will happen.
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
Apparently even sector by sector deals are heresy to some ultras, and the government has backed off.
What a way to run (by which I mean, immobilise) a country.
Sector by sector deals are fine, as long as we agreeing a fixed deal. What we shouldn't sign up for is a deal where the terms can be changed by the EU side as they pass new laws.
“These reports are categorically untrue. This Government is focussed on using our Brexit freedoms to create opportunities that drive growth and strengthen our economy. 1/2
“Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardise the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.” 2/2
But doesn’t really address problem that a “senior government figure” quite clearly told the Sunday Times it was being considered.
'Senior government figure'? We're surely talking about an acolyte of Boris here. If he can stir up the ERG enough to devour Rishi, then that would be the ideal scenario for the comeback.
More likely it's someone close to Hunt testing the waters.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
I'm not sure what timescale "London Paul" is thinking on, but shortages that would break Britain, France, or the US won't break people in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus quite so fast.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
Lol. Two Russian astroturfers agreeing with each other and linking to Pro-Russian Twitter accounts. It's funny how the imminent demise of Ukraine has been on the cards for months and during that time the only one losing masses of territory is Russia.
Face it. In 20 years time, Ukraine will be a successful Western democracy while losers in Russia will still need to shill for the autocrat stealing their money.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
I'm not sure what timescale "London Paul" is thinking on, but shortages that would break Britain, France, or the US won't break people in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus quite so fast.
Agreed...Russians are relatively tough and much more likely to be able to put up with shortages, ukrainians too. Russias strategy seems to be to break Ukraine as a viable functioning country and then its military will likely collapse. At that point NATO has to decide...enter the conflict or let Russia win
Just caught the woman who has been using my wheelie bin for her dog mess for some weeks now, by the simple expedient of tying a handbell to the lid. Hopefully, problem solved.
(First world problem, obvs)
I hope you admonished her in a suitably British way.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station and it be someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
This is a worrying tweet for Ukraine
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
I'm not sure what timescale "London Paul" is thinking on, but shortages that would break Britain, France, or the US won't break people in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus quite so fast.
Agreed...Russians are relatively tough and much more likely to be able to put up with shortages, ukrainians too. Russias strategy seems to be to break Ukraine as a viable functioning country and then its military will likely collapse. At that point NATO has to decide...enter the conflict or let Russia win
Massive home advantage in winter warfare (see: invasion of Russia, invasion of Russia, invasion of Russia). Your posting on the subject has inspired me to make a significant bung to the Ukraine crisis appeal, which may not be what you intended.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
The land banking is in response to the “planning and development” anti-system.
As is the grip of large corporations on development. When something is slow, expensive and has a long legal process, you have given a massive advantage to big companies.
Absolutely.
The system has created an effective oligopoly, because only large developers have the capital to manage the risk and timescales.
The downstream effect is lots of Barratt hutches that people rightly object to, and no self-build sector worth the name.
New builds are shit.
No storage, no-room-to-swing-a-cat bedrooms, postage stamp gardens, full of snags and hugely overpriced.
We bought a 1982 build, which needed a bit of work, sure, but much better.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Accidents will happen.
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
And should people who cause accidents admit them or should they blame someone else?
As for your thoughts on who's doing the shelling of the ZNP, you'd better tell Mr Grossi.
According to TASS 15 shells have hit facilities at the ZNP yesterday and today. There is a limit to how much shelling the containment structure around a nuclear reactor can take. Go on like this and there will be a f***ing meltdown. One shell could be a whoopsadaisy. Fifteen in two days aren't.
Someone is clearly trying to achieve something which isn't just a shortage of electrical energy in Ukraine.
Think of it like this: perhaps they didn't achieve the goal they were trying to achieve after Przewodow. I'm not saying Przewodow wasn't an accident. I'm saying look at what was said in the aftermath.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
How much is the UK housing problem lack of land, and how much is it that, collectively, we have sort of decided not to build enough homes?
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
We come back to a dysfunctional planning system which is a bizarre mixture of stalinism (you can’t build that), corporatism (you can only build if you are one of a small set of mass developers) and laissez faire (the government refuses to do anything about obvious market failure).
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Its really not the planning system that is the problem. Go research the huge number of unimplemented permissions, and the land banking that the major developers are doing.
The land banking is in response to the “planning and development” anti-system.
As is the grip of large corporations on development. When something is slow, expensive and has a long legal process, you have given a massive advantage to big companies.
Absolutely.
The system has created an effective oligopoly, because only large developers have the capital to manage the risk and timescales.
The downstream effect is lots of Barratt hutches that people rightly object to, and no self-build sector worth the name.
New builds are shit.
No storage, no-room-to-swing-a-cat bedrooms, postage stamp gardens, full of snags and hugely overpriced.
We bought a 1982 build, which needed a bit of work, sure, but much better.
We have space.
You have to be mad to buy a new build post 2005. When we were looking we realised everything post 2005 was just awful. I don't know whether it was a regulation change or builders just realised they could cut corners but before that houses were still pretty decent, after that they all seemed small, flimsy and not made to live in.
In the end we got a 1920s build which needed a lot of work and to be properly insulated. Glad now that we spent the money on better insulation and triple glazing rather than not bothering.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Putting aside Brexit, Torsten Bell explains the uniquely British economic malaise very well on a recent episode of “News Agents”.
Take five countries with which Britons might think they are broadly comparable: France, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia.
Britain is much more unequal and quite a bit poorer. The wealthiest in Britain are doing the same (or better), but the middle and bottom are *much* poorer than their peers.
If Britain was like these neighbours, the average family would be £8,800 better off per year.
And now, that family faces increased energy costs which are priced globally…
Adding five million unskilled and semi-skilled people to a population, in less than a decade, will have exactly that effect.
Actually, the reverse. But you do you.
Ah yes, making the minimum wage, the maximum wage for millions of people, makes them richer than when their labour is a scarce resource. Of course it does.
As as been pointed out to you countless times, EU migration was better skilled than domestic labour, improved corporate productivity, and helped ease the demographic burden besides.
I know anti-immigration sneering is pretty much all you have left, but it’s boring to see it trotted out over and over.
Yes, you seem convinced that a native population where a huge number of people are reliant on minimum wage, unwaged ‘gig’ work, and state benefit top-ups, is a happy state of affairs.
But EU migration didn’t cause those things.
Minimum wage, gig economy (eg zero hours contracting) and in-work benefits are all deliberate cross-party policies of the last xx years.
Exactly. As I've covered a million times, why don't Germany or France have low-wage and low-skill economies ? They're also in the EU.
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
France and Germany don't have the issues with housing unaffordability we do. France has twice the land area and Germany has both more land and more regional cities for historic reasons.
What’s the Dutch excuse then?
A far lower level of immigration than us, and much, much lower from the developing world.
Only fools will bet on matches involving Qatar, they are said to be attempting to pay off individual footballers in the Ecuador and Senegal national teams to the matches so they can advance to the knock out stages.
Only fools will bet on matches involving Qatar, they are said to be attempting to pay off individual footballers in the Ecuador and Senegal national teams to the matches so they can advance to the knock out stages.
Never known a widespread apathy like it around this tournament. Barely anyone talking about it at all.
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Accidents will happen.
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
And should people who cause accidents admit them or should they blame someone else?
As for your thoughts on who's doing the shelling of the ZNP, you'd better tell Mr Grossi.
According to TASS 15 shells have hit facilities at the ZNP yesterday and today. There is a limit to how much shelling the containment structure around a nuclear reactor can take. Go on like this and there will be a f***ing meltdown. One shell could be a whoopsadaisy. Fifteen in two days aren't.
Someone is clearly trying to achieve something which isn't just a shortage of electrical energy in Ukraine.
Think of it like this: perhaps they didn't achieve the goal they were trying to achieve after Przewodow. I'm not saying Przewodow wasn't an accident. I'm saying look at what was said in the aftermath.
If somebody was trying to achieve something, it wouldn't have been an accident!
I agree though that there is a need for a more positive campaign to Rejoin, not just a desire to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust.
The requirement to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust is a necessary but not sufficient condition if we want to avoid doing it all over again.
A methodology that puts off any kind of improvement.
Because grinding peoples faces into the dust doesn’t make them more stubborn. Not at all.
What you actually want to do is to build a political movement of people in favour of Europe. When you have a nice big majority of those, you’ll get rejoin.
You won’t get rejoin because Starmer does a whipped vote on day 1 for rejoin. He won’t commit political suicide for you.
That's not the point.
I want to get (back) to a point where a politician like Nigel Fucking Farage is laughed off the stage instead of being feted on every platform for spouting spurious bullshit.
I want a politician who says with a straight face "We have had enough of experts" expunged.
I want journalists and broadcasters to once again presents facts, not presents opinions as equivalent.
The requirement to grind Brexiteers faces into the dust is a necessary but not sufficient condition for that.
I hope the same thing happens to the SNP in Scotland.
You are wrong regarding the grinding of faces, but the rest is on the right track.
Scott posts unsubstantiated Tweets that turn out to be factually incorrect very frequently. I find it hard to square that with this declared devotion to fact.
Only fools will bet on matches involving Qatar, they are said to be attempting to pay off individual footballers in the Ecuador and Senegal national teams to the matches so they can advance to the knock out stages.
Comments
The people who voted for it seem less sure...
It's not that the EU has not changed some of these things, it's that some of them *were consciously encouraged by Thatcherism*. And then many of Thatcher's same acolytes then proposed Brexit. It's as clear as day, but will always be difficult for many on the right to accept , partly because of Thatcher's totemic status.
I cannot come with you to ScottP's level and say that the very concept of the UK not being in the EU is impossible, because that would be a bizarre distortion of logic.
Marquee Mark needs to elaborate on these fantasies that were troubling him.
I said it would be shit.
I was right, along with lots of other people, and experts...
Other policies could have been used. Probably with better side effects.
Everyone who has worked with the NHS knows its bureaucracy is tortured and confusing even for a large bureaucracy, but we all know simple fixes won't work. It wouldn't have got to this point if it were simple.
However I think the backlash against Brexit has hardly got started yet. If the most recent "right/wrong to leave" tracker is to be believed only 19% of under 50s now believe we were right to leave (v 66% wrong). Support for Brexit is largely being sustained by OAPs.
There is only one way this is going unless some amazing rabbits are pulled out of the hat and there has been precious little sign of that from the Brexit governments we have suffered through so far.
Thatcher created a highly flexible labour market.
New Labour added various supports at the bottom.
Both made Britain highly attractive to surplus labour in the EU.
Overall the evidence suggests that was greatly to Britain’s benefit.
But there were abuses. Nothing was done about the abuses. There were costs. And nothing was done about the costs.
Raising Taxes 51% (+12)
Neither 21% (+5)
Lowering 14% (-24)
Don't know 14% (+7)
Changes +/- 29 September https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1594315045059858433/photo/1
This was three years before Alan Sked and his sovereignty arguments, which were rooted in a legal and governmental suspicion of the Italians.
In a statement, the club - Club Q - called the shooting a "hate attack" and said customers overpowered the gunman.
https://news.sky.com/story/five-killed-18-injured-in-us-gay-nightclub-hate-attack-12751571
Try finding a similar option for Brussels.
If suddenly we had a mad baby boom and every woman in the country started having 3 children, many of the same problems would have cropped up.
Fundamentally, many structures and policies were built around a slowly increasing population.
Can Britain exist outside the EU? Obviously, yes. We are doing it.
Can Britain stay the 5th largest economy after Brexit? Umm, no.
Can the London Stock Exchange keep its place in the World order after Brexit? Umm, no.
Can Britain maintain its Global aid commitments after Brexit? Umm, no.
The answer to the question, can the post-Brexit Britain maintain the place on the Global stage enjoyed by the pre-Brexit Britain, the answer is sadly, no. That was impossible...
Oakshott, Farage and Grimes could go under the banner of MEGA (Make England Great Again). It works better.
- redistributing money from workers to pensioners
- hugely raising taxes on companies
- taking money from productive regions like the South East to keep workers in the North East or Northern Ireland on the dole
- subsidising low-skill, low productivity industries like farming
- borrowing to give money we don't have to hand it out to third world dumps.
All sadly happening under this nominally Conservative and Brexiteer, but in fact Brownite and BINO, government.
I do remember when Blair proposed to handle homelessness* among immigrants/asylum seekers by sending them to parts of the country where property was cheaper and more available than London. Apparently housing people in the suburbs of Glasgow was against their human rights - according to some.
*homelessness of the “got a room or two in a shitty hostel/hotel” kind
It is the politics of incumbency. Enjoy incumbency.
He's also consistently polite and measured, and funny, something most of us can only dream of.
…DJT asked me to pass this on- https://twitter.com/ManMadeMoon/status/1594201559612608512/photo/1
London unemployment 4.2% (a record low).
NE 4.7% (the highest in the country).
Hardly a significant difference.
OK, most people haven't put it as explicitly as that, but it is the net effect of other decisions society has taken.
But the chain from "don't build on that field near me" or "don't develop those old houses to four stories" to Britain being poorer, meaner and angrier than is ideal is too long to fit into a three word slogan.
Another issue is that councils see people as an expense. If councils were fully funded from the people living there, their attitude would be different - more people would be more money, automatically
(First world problem, obvs)
When it comes to the geo-spatial reality, the Low Countries, the Paris Basin, and the Greater New York Metro area are all denser than SE England.
Britain left the EU on 31 Jan 2020. Let's keep the country in the great condition it's been in these past three years thanks to the exit. Let's not endanger all the progress that's been made. Fantastic campaigning line. Shows real understanding of how people live and how they feel about it.
Boris Johnson looks like he's hitchhiking. Didn't the ex-KGB oligarch arrange his travel back to one of his homes after the party?
The system has created an effective oligopoly, because only large developers have the capital to manage the risk and timescales.
The downstream effect is lots of Barratt hutches that people rightly object to, and no self-build sector worth the name.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/physics-experiments-spell-doom-for-quantum-collapse-theory-20221020/
But it is all part of the messed up nature of how the system operates.
“These reports are categorically untrue. This Government is focussed on using our Brexit freedoms to create opportunities that drive growth and strengthen our economy. 1/2
“Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardise the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.” 2/2
But doesn’t really address problem that a “senior government figure” quite clearly told the Sunday Times it was being considered.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1594337716686442502
Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, is wagging his finger like nobody's business. Possibly he even means to tell the culprits' parents - assuming the moment comes when he decides he can declare he's found out who the culprits actually are.
"Whoever is behind this," says Mr Grossi, "it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!" (Source.)
The Kiev government...they're the guys who launched a missile that landed in Poland recently, killing two civilians, and they haven't admitted it, right? And NATO loony Jens Stoltenberg said sure but it's not their fault that they did it. (I wonder whose fault it is that they haven't admitted it? Father Christmas's maybe.) Just for some context. Logic suggests that it's possible for guys like Stoltenberg to say it's even possible to shell the f*** out of a nuclear power station with it being someone else's fault. They must have been great moral philosophy classes he attended at the Steiner school.
Just for some further context...
If Russia continues to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine, an inflexion point will be reached, whereby Ukraine as a nation will collapse, due to chronic food, water, communication and energy shortages. It would also no longer be able to continue to fight the war.
8:11 AM · Nov 20, 2022·Twitter for Android
https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/status/1594241992107884544?s=20&t=FICCWtx2ho8YgssRuQ47-w
The Zap plant provides electricity to Ukraine. There is one party which has set out to deprive Ukraine of electricity. Which party is that?
Edited in case spoilers unwanted.
What a way to run (by which I mean, immobilise) a country.
Face it. In 20 years time, Ukraine will be a successful Western democracy while losers in Russia will still need to shill for the autocrat stealing their money.
No storage, no-room-to-swing-a-cat bedrooms, postage stamp gardens, full of snags and hugely overpriced.
We bought a 1982 build, which needed a bit of work, sure, but much better.
We have space.
Qatar 3.9
Ecuador 2.3
Draw 3.3
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/fifa-world-cup/qatar-v-ecuador-betting-31348645
As for your thoughts on who's doing the shelling of the ZNP, you'd better tell Mr Grossi.
According to TASS 15 shells have hit facilities at the ZNP yesterday and today. There is a limit to how much shelling the containment structure around a nuclear reactor can take. Go on like this and there will be a f***ing meltdown. One shell could be a whoopsadaisy. Fifteen in two days aren't.
Someone is clearly trying to achieve something which isn't just a shortage of electrical energy in Ukraine.
Think of it like this: perhaps they didn't achieve the goal they were trying to achieve after Przewodow. I'm not saying Przewodow wasn't an accident. I'm saying look at what was said in the aftermath.
In the end we got a 1920s build which needed a lot of work and to be properly insulated. Glad now that we spent the money on better insulation and triple glazing rather than not bothering.
Basically the snake as the UK
Barely anyone talking about it at all.
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1698700/fifa-receive-red-flag-qatar-team-world-cup-opener-ecuador
Surely a reason to back Qatar? I am going to because I soooo want them to lose.