The unwittingly ironic name of the Women and Equalities department is the perfect example of how some who claim to be in favour of equality view the world through rather tinted glasses.
There was a good story the other day, that Facebook’s “Trust and Safety Board” have told the company to rescind their ban on showing women’s nipples.
Their reasoning though, is nothing to do with the campaign by feminsist groups to ‘free the nipple’, but because the academic trust and safety board find themselves unable to define ‘woman’. The board said Meta's policy was based on a “binary view of gender and a distinction between male and female bodies”, meaning the rules were “unclear” on how they applied to transgender and non-binary people.
You can have tremendous fun with people desperate to not offend against any part of The Liturgy.
My problem is I instantly lose respect for anyone who does it, which sometimes can border on contempt depending on how often and how shamelessly they do it. I roll my eyes, shake my head, and quietly become disappointed in them.
It indicates weaknesses, sheepish and a lack of an ability for independent thought to me - most importantly, the leaders who do it the most I've found to be the ones with the worst personal values in practice: the faster he proclaimed his virtue the faster did we count our spoons
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
It’s the same with Mr Blackface in Canada, who thought that debanking protestors was a reasonable reaction. Yet, for some reason, the sh1t doesn’t stick and he’s lauded as a Canadian hero.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Coming late to this, so interested in the response of @CorrectHorseBattery3 (or indeed any of our Scottish posters) to his point on the previous thread
"CorrectHorseBattery3 said: Culture wars are killing the Tories.
They've had plenty of warning from me about this, I said people will say "I can't afford to eat why on Earth are you telling me about trans rights"
Why does your argument not apply to the SNP then? There are plenty of issues for Scot Gov to deal with, which are far more important to most people than this and yet the SNP have been focused on it despite its unpopularity, according to polls.
So using your analysis - which I agree will be the response of a lot of voters - why has this not affected the SNP in the same way?
And if it hasn't, what does this tell us, if anything?"
Two reasons: 1. The SNP are on the opposite side of the culture war. The Tories are trying to demonise, divide and belittle. The SNP are trying to do the opposite 2. If you support the SNP you almost certainly support the idea of Scotland doing its own thing even if not all the way to independence. So Scottish elected ministers passing laws is precisely the kind of thing you support even if not that specific law. Your disapproving alternative is to vote for a unionist party and give up on autonomy.
Do you agree that the Tories' abysmal polls are due to their stance on trans issues then? 'It's a view'.
Hell no. Their abysmal poll ratings are because they are abysmal as a government. Very few people have even noticed there is a "trans issue" never mind got het up about it.
Coming late to this, so interested in the response of @CorrectHorseBattery3 (or indeed any of our Scottish posters) to his point on the previous thread
"CorrectHorseBattery3 said: Culture wars are killing the Tories.
They've had plenty of warning from me about this, I said people will say "I can't afford to eat why on Earth are you telling me about trans rights"
Why does your argument not apply to the SNP then? There are plenty of issues for Scot Gov to deal with, which are far more important to most people than this and yet the SNP have been focused on it despite its unpopularity, according to polls.
So using your analysis - which I agree will be the response of a lot of voters - why has this not affected the SNP in the same way?
And if it hasn't, what does this tell us, if anything?"
WEll a shit storm is ongoing up here and poor or not people are raging. Only thing that saves SNP going down the drain is there are a lot of people who still believ e the lying cheating barstewards are trying to get independence. They will hold tgheir nose thinking that after independence these pyschos will be out on their erchies. Personally they will not ever get my vote while this bunch of lying cheating weirdo rogues are in charge.
Interesting reading in the light of PBers yesterday querying the nominal inflation rate in view of the actual shop prices - turns out, rightly so.
Which have been looking at real world food inflation: in summary, 10-21%* at present, depending on the supermarket, with the cheap ones hit worst and Ocado least.
And of grocery ranges, own brand budget stuff is worst hit. Oh my fur and whiskers.
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
"Retail sales fell by 1% in December, according to official figures, as shoppers cut back on spending.
The Office for National Statistics said that retailers told them "consumers are cutting back on spending because of increased prices and affordability concerns".
There was a sharp drop at non-food stores, but food stores also reported a fall in sales.
The ONS also revised down figures for November.
It said that sales volumes fell by 0.5% instead of the original estimate of a 0.4% drop."
What is never reported is the accuracy of these figures. Reporting a 0.4% change if the numbers are +/-3% is just nonsense.
And now we see very stark choices being made - very little actual cash arriving in the deprived north, and what there is going directly into swing blue places that often don't need it such as Yarm.
I'm sure the idea was "bribe red wall morons with cash so they keep voting for us". Pity that ship has already sailed. As sadly has any hope of rescuing these places from the grim hell they have decayed into.
Rather than a moment of triumph, the announcement this week of the second round of cash from the levelling-up fund, worth £2.1 billion from a pot of £4.8 billion, has led to Sunak’s worst fracas with his MPs to date. With 550 requests for funding and only 111 winners, Tories who failed in their bids have seen red, with the prime minister accused of prioritising the southeast over the northeast. A minister describes the party as “steaming”. “It’s No 10’s first real misstep on party management,” says a former minister. As MPs received tip-offs on the fate of their bids, there were angry scenes in the Commons, with ministers confronted by MPs who had lost out.
While some of the more divisive allocations — such as funds for cabinet ministers’ seats, including Sunak’s — could have been avoided, much of this is down to Johnson. The failure of previous governments to define levelling up means people have bid, in the words of one MP, for “absolutely everything”. Successful bids range from funding for Malvern theatres to new cycling and walking infrastructure in Camden, north London. “I can’t speak for Boris but it’s not what I imagine he meant when he spoke in 2019,” says one MP from that intake.
I think that Benevolent Despot Handing Out Billions is exactly what Boris had in mind. And the Whitehall-led model has been SOP for a long time.
A lot of these bids look like things that councils should be able to do out of core funding, but can't because of austerity and social care.
And the thing that probably would help prosperity most- improve transport within the second division cities (the sort of places BBC regional news comes from)- remains a pipe dream.
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
I didn't think you had to in the back seat. Live and learn.
Really? Since about 30 years ago!
Thought it only applied to children. Wonder what other laws have escaped my attention?
Unbelted children are the responsibility of the car’s driver. Unbelted adults are their own responsibility - in any seat of the car which has a belt fitted.
As others have said, it doesn’t look good on the police for them to make a point of spending lots of time on something that results in a £30 fixed penalty ticket, and when the complaints are clearly politically motivated, when their attitude to much more serious crimes such as house burglaries and car thefts appears to be spotty at best.
You’re misjudging this. As we saw with party gate, politicians can’t take the “it’s only a little law” “one law for you, another for us” approach. You take the fine and move on. If anything, you swing the other way and take ownership of the whole thing and say this reminds us that seatbelts save lives.
The approach you recommend prolongs it.
I think that you are right about the attitude the politicians should take, and I’m right about the attitude the police should take.
Are seatbelts less serious than car theft? I’m not sure. I know where you are coming from. Crime is a big problem, hugely damaging and apparently out of control under this government. However, seatbelts save many lives. The law is there for a reason, like speed limits. Take the fine. Eat humble pie. Move on.
“Are seatbelts less serious than car theft?”
Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.
One is a very minor offence, dealt with by means of a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty. The other is a permanent deprivation of someone’s often expensive property, that can and does result in a term of imprisonment. In aggravated cases, it can be sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.
A feature of the last decade or so is the emergence of a pathological obsession with safety, and a shift in thinking towards the notion that government should protect people from all kinds of harm, such that were previously thought to be solely within the remit of personal responsibility. It is leading to the embrace of elements of totalitarianism and socialism.
Eh? Putting on a seat belt? Legislation brought in by Tories 30 years ago. Really? I suspect most people don’t mind. Not a huge loss of freedom. Unless you really want to dive through a windscreen. I guess your against the totalitarianism associated with forcing people to drive on the left.
The panic it has generated is quite something, compared with years ago when it would have just been shrugged off, like the pictures emerging of Blair in a similar car which went unnoticed.
To my mind there are many irresolvable contradictions here; IE, why is it that people have to wear seatbelts in cars but not when they are travelling on busses? And how is it possible for motorcycling to still be allowed when it is so dangerous?
Coming late to this, so interested in the response of @CorrectHorseBattery3 (or indeed any of our Scottish posters) to his point on the previous thread
"CorrectHorseBattery3 said: Culture wars are killing the Tories.
They've had plenty of warning from me about this, I said people will say "I can't afford to eat why on Earth are you telling me about trans rights"
Why does your argument not apply to the SNP then? There are plenty of issues for Scot Gov to deal with, which are far more important to most people than this and yet the SNP have been focused on it despite its unpopularity, according to polls.
So using your analysis - which I agree will be the response of a lot of voters - why has this not affected the SNP in the same way?
And if it hasn't, what does this tell us, if anything?"
Two reasons: 1. The SNP are on the opposite side of the culture war. The Tories are trying to demonise, divide and belittle. The SNP are trying to do the opposite 2. If you support the SNP you almost certainly support the idea of Scotland doing its own thing even if not all the way to independence. So Scottish elected ministers passing laws is precisely the kind of thing you support even if not that specific law. Your disapproving alternative is to vote for a unionist party and give up on autonomy.
Do you agree that the Tories' abysmal polls are due to their stance on trans issues then? 'It's a view'.
Hell no. Their abysmal poll ratings are because they are abysmal as a government. Very few people have even noticed there is a "trans issue" never mind got het up about it.
Exactly. I was saying months ago to Leon culture wars will do nothing for the Tories.
People care about things that affect them far more. The cost of food, energy, the declining standard of living, the cost of living crisis.
If the Tories and their supporters seriously think they can win an election on the back of declining living standards by picking a fight on so-called wokeness which has been allowed to proliferate over the past decade when they were in charge then they truly are desperate.
Now if inflation is down to 3 or 4% by the time of the next election and the worst of it seems over then they may have a chance of minimising their impending defeat. But if they fight on woke issues that is just desperation as they would have nothing else to offer.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Those places didn’t industrialise because of central Government sprinkling them with nice paved areas, museum renovations and renewable powered bus services, so why would they reindustrialise because of those things?
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
A highly paid, senior job, certainly awaits.
I would smile if she got a gig with the WEF. That would certainly trigger plenty of people.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
I didn't think you had to in the back seat. Live and learn.
Really? Since about 30 years ago!
Thought it only applied to children. Wonder what other laws have escaped my attention?
Unbelted children are the responsibility of the car’s driver. Unbelted adults are their own responsibility - in any seat of the car which has a belt fitted.
As others have said, it doesn’t look good on the police for them to make a point of spending lots of time on something that results in a £30 fixed penalty ticket, and when the complaints are clearly politically motivated, when their attitude to much more serious crimes such as house burglaries and car thefts appears to be spotty at best.
You’re misjudging this. As we saw with party gate, politicians can’t take the “it’s only a little law” “one law for you, another for us” approach. You take the fine and move on. If anything, you swing the other way and take ownership of the whole thing and say this reminds us that seatbelts save lives.
The approach you recommend prolongs it.
I think that you are right about the attitude the politicians should take, and I’m right about the attitude the police should take.
Are seatbelts less serious than car theft? I’m not sure. I know where you are coming from. Crime is a big problem, hugely damaging and apparently out of control under this government. However, seatbelts save many lives. The law is there for a reason, like speed limits. Take the fine. Eat humble pie. Move on.
“Are seatbelts less serious than car theft?”
Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.
One is a very minor offence, dealt with by means of a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty. The other is a permanent deprivation of someone’s often expensive property, that can and does result in a term of imprisonment. In aggravated cases, it can be sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.
A feature of the last decade or so is the emergence of a pathological obsession with safety, and a shift in thinking towards the notion that government should protect people from all kinds of harm, such that were previously thought to be solely within the remit of personal responsibility. It is leading to the embrace of elements of totalitarianism and socialism.
Eh? Putting on a seat belt? Legislation brought in by Tories 30 years ago. Really? I suspect most people don’t mind. Not a huge loss of freedom. Unless you really want to dive through a windscreen...
Or if you're a back seat passenger, into the driver, injuring or possibly killing them too.
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
There will be any number of useless talking shops looking to employ the silly slaphead. Nicola Sturgeon will be sticking pins in a wax effigy.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
In Leeds for work today. Drove because the train was £100 for a return ticket. Dogshit.
C’est la vie
There are a number of political decisions where an Impassionate algorithm could almost certainly do a better job than real humans, and one category is capital investment.
It seems like an absolute no brainer that it would pay off hugely to build way more rail infrastructure across the country, and subsidise if if necessary. The most obvious candidate being NPR. It would translate straight into economic gains as countless examples across Europe show. Same with funding huge increases in thermal insulation and energy efficiency, and solar installations on roofs. Immediate payback in reduced energy costs. Plenty of others too.
The human pattern is that they always seem a bit too expensive to do now, or the payoff is too long, then in a decade’s time everyone deeply regrets missing the opportunity, but argues it’s now twice as expensive. Then a decade later etc.
Take decisions on new nuclear power a decade ago.
Wasn’t there a decision about nuclear power stations, early in the Coalition government, where the Lib Dem’s argued that it was pointless? Since the new station would only online at the ridiculously far off date of… 2025.
EVERYONE knows I am opposed to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. However, I believe the problems it creates should be addressed in Scotland if not by our Parliament, then by our courts.
That said, to describe the use of the Section 35 power to block the bill as an attack on devolution doesn’t really make sense. It is of the essence of devolution that the devolved Parliament is subservient to the UK Parliament that’s why we as nationalists want independence.
In an independent Scotland the passing of the bill by a parliamentary majority would not necessarily have guaranteed that it would have become law without further challenge.
Coming late to this, so interested in the response of @CorrectHorseBattery3 (or indeed any of our Scottish posters) to his point on the previous thread
"CorrectHorseBattery3 said: Culture wars are killing the Tories.
They've had plenty of warning from me about this, I said people will say "I can't afford to eat why on Earth are you telling me about trans rights"
Why does your argument not apply to the SNP then? There are plenty of issues for Scot Gov to deal with, which are far more important to most people than this and yet the SNP have been focused on it despite its unpopularity, according to polls.
So using your analysis - which I agree will be the response of a lot of voters - why has this not affected the SNP in the same way?
And if it hasn't, what does this tell us, if anything?"
Two reasons: 1. The SNP are on the opposite side of the culture war. The Tories are trying to demonise, divide and belittle. The SNP are trying to do the opposite 2. If you support the SNP you almost certainly support the idea of Scotland doing its own thing even if not all the way to independence. So Scottish elected ministers passing laws is precisely the kind of thing you support even if not that specific law. Your disapproving alternative is to vote for a unionist party and give up on autonomy.
Do you agree that the Tories' abysmal polls are due to their stance on trans issues then? 'It's a view'.
Hell no. Their abysmal poll ratings are because they are abysmal as a government. Very few people have even noticed there is a "trans issue" never mind got het up about it.
Exactly. I was saying months ago to Leon culture wars will do nothing for the Tories.
People care about things that affect them far more. The cost of food, energy, the declining standard of living, the cost of living crisis.
If the Tories and their supporters seriously think they can win an election on the back of declining living standards by picking a fight on so-called wokeness which has been allowed to proliferate over the past decade when they were in charge then they truly are desperate.
Now if inflation is down to 3 or 4% by the time of the next election and the worst of it seems over then they may have a chance of minimising their impending defeat. But if they fight on woke issues that is just desperation as they would have nothing else to offer.
The culture war stuff isn’t a war that’s being waged by the Tories, they are the respondents to the litigation coming out of academia, institutions and devolved administrations.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
@IanDunt: Only Rishi Sunak could give away billions and still turn it into a bad news day
I don't quite agree with this. Someone else said that when you are down/behind in the polls, everything is spun against you, and when you are up/leading in the polls its the opposite.
People are looking for anything and the seatbeltgate is just the easy one. If it hadn't been that, it would have been the areas the "missed out". If not that it would have been Zahawi's tax issues. And on, and on and on.
Interesting thread by former tank brigade commander.
https://mobile.twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1616220288001396737 My aim in this thread is not to argue whether they should be provided. I think it is obvious they should. If Russia can deploy T90s or even its new T-14s (according to British Intelligence), why are we denying similar capabilities to #Ukraine?...
...We need to stop looking for excuses like ‘this is a complex system’. I don’t recall these arguments when M1 tanks went to Iraq, or Egypt. And as someone who commanded a brigade with M1 tanks, if the Australian Army with its very light logistic footprint (and lack of tank strategic sustainment for the first decade in service) can do it, the Ukrainians definitely can!
The thing that interests me is this - the M1 was designed for rapid power pack changes. That is, you crane out the engine and gearbox, drop in another.
In Leeds for work today. Drove because the train was £100 for a return ticket. Dogshit.
C’est la vie
There are a number of political decisions where an Impassionate algorithm could almost certainly do a better job than real humans, and one category is capital investment.
It seems like an absolute no brainer that it would pay off hugely to build way more rail infrastructure across the country, and subsidise if if necessary. The most obvious candidate being NPR. It would translate straight into economic gains as countless examples across Europe show. Same with funding huge increases in thermal insulation and energy efficiency, and solar installations on roofs. Immediate payback in reduced energy costs. Plenty of others too.
The human pattern is that they always seem a bit too expensive to do now, or the payoff is too long, then in a decade’s time everyone deeply regrets missing the opportunity, but argues it’s now twice as expensive. Then a decade later etc.
Take decisions on new nuclear power a decade ago.
Wasn’t there a decision about nuclear power stations, early in the Coalition government, where the Lib Dem’s argued that it was pointless? Since the new station would only online at the ridiculously far off date of… 2025.
Exactly. One of Clegg’s moments of silliness all because the party still had elements of anti-nuclear bias in it (which have largely gone now thankfully). Contrast with Davey’s more forward looking policy towards wind power which is paying dividends now.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
What would be better than either, is to let local government raise much more of their income locally.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
Yes, but probably still some need for central redistribution. Local priorities are fine, but the fact is that there's more money sloshing around in (say) parts of the south east than in the north east.
Coming late to this, so interested in the response of @CorrectHorseBattery3 (or indeed any of our Scottish posters) to his point on the previous thread
"CorrectHorseBattery3 said: Culture wars are killing the Tories.
They've had plenty of warning from me about this, I said people will say "I can't afford to eat why on Earth are you telling me about trans rights"
Why does your argument not apply to the SNP then? There are plenty of issues for Scot Gov to deal with, which are far more important to most people than this and yet the SNP have been focused on it despite its unpopularity, according to polls.
So using your analysis - which I agree will be the response of a lot of voters - why has this not affected the SNP in the same way?
And if it hasn't, what does this tell us, if anything?"
Two reasons: 1. The SNP are on the opposite side of the culture war. The Tories are trying to demonise, divide and belittle. The SNP are trying to do the opposite 2. If you support the SNP you almost certainly support the idea of Scotland doing its own thing even if not all the way to independence. So Scottish elected ministers passing laws is precisely the kind of thing you support even if not that specific law. Your disapproving alternative is to vote for a unionist party and give up on autonomy.
Do you agree that the Tories' abysmal polls are due to their stance on trans issues then? 'It's a view'.
Hell no. Their abysmal poll ratings are because they are abysmal as a government. Very few people have even noticed there is a "trans issue" never mind got het up about it.
Exactly. I was saying months ago to Leon culture wars will do nothing for the Tories.
People care about things that affect them far more. The cost of food, energy, the declining standard of living, the cost of living crisis.
If the Tories and their supporters seriously think they can win an election on the back of declining living standards by picking a fight on so-called wokeness which has been allowed to proliferate over the past decade when they were in charge then they truly are desperate.
Now if inflation is down to 3 or 4% by the time of the next election and the worst of it seems over then they may have a chance of minimising their impending defeat. But if they fight on woke issues that is just desperation as they would have nothing else to offer.
The culture war stuff isn’t a war that’s being waged by the Tories, they are the respondents to the litigation coming out of academia, institutions and devolved administrations.
Labelling it “Culture war” is the continuing attempt at “no debate”. As the Scot Gov has found out, only listening to people who agree with you and dismissing the concerns of those who don’t doesn’t end well.
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
If she’s feeling burnt out, UN Sec Gen is a fairly stressful, up-all-hours job.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she did some low key stuff for a year or 2, before looking at roles like that.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Make it a legal… triple lock… that for every pound spent on foreign aid, the same has to be spent on regional development.
It would be interesting to see arguments against that.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
If you'd survived a crash by not wearing a seatbelt, you might feel differently. Or not, who knows.
Oh god not this old chestnut of not wearing a seat belt saved my life. The stats speak for themselves. Yes you might drown because you crashed into a pond and couldn't get it off, but you are more likely to die through not wearing one. Same argument as why we should all smoke 100 cigarettes a day because you can find one 100 year old who did.
"Retail sales fell by 1% in December, according to official figures, as shoppers cut back on spending.
The Office for National Statistics said that retailers told them "consumers are cutting back on spending because of increased prices and affordability concerns".
There was a sharp drop at non-food stores, but food stores also reported a fall in sales.
The ONS also revised down figures for November.
It said that sales volumes fell by 0.5% instead of the original estimate of a 0.4% drop."
What is never reported is the accuracy of these figures. Reporting a 0.4% change if the numbers are +/-3% is just nonsense.
Yeah It's survey data, the actual revenue and volume data coming from retailers suggests the surveys are wrong.
I didn't think you had to in the back seat. Live and learn.
Really? Since about 30 years ago!
Thought it only applied to children. Wonder what other laws have escaped my attention?
Unbelted children are the responsibility of the car’s driver. Unbelted adults are their own responsibility - in any seat of the car which has a belt fitted.
As others have said, it doesn’t look good on the police for them to make a point of spending lots of time on something that results in a £30 fixed penalty ticket, and when the complaints are clearly politically motivated, when their attitude to much more serious crimes such as house burglaries and car thefts appears to be spotty at best.
You’re misjudging this. As we saw with party gate, politicians can’t take the “it’s only a little law” “one law for you, another for us” approach. You take the fine and move on. If anything, you swing the other way and take ownership of the whole thing and say this reminds us that seatbelts save lives.
The approach you recommend prolongs it.
I think that you are right about the attitude the politicians should take, and I’m right about the attitude the police should take.
Are seatbelts less serious than car theft? I’m not sure. I know where you are coming from. Crime is a big problem, hugely damaging and apparently out of control under this government. However, seatbelts save many lives. The law is there for a reason, like speed limits. Take the fine. Eat humble pie. Move on.
“Are seatbelts less serious than car theft?”
Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.
One is a very minor offence, dealt with by means of a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty. The other is a permanent deprivation of someone’s often expensive property, that can and does result in a term of imprisonment. In aggravated cases, it can be sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.
A feature of the last decade or so is the emergence of a pathological obsession with safety, and a shift in thinking towards the notion that government should protect people from all kinds of harm, such that were previously thought to be solely within the remit of personal responsibility. It is leading to the embrace of elements of totalitarianism and socialism.
Eh? Putting on a seat belt? Legislation brought in by Tories 30 years ago. Really? I suspect most people don’t mind. Not a huge loss of freedom. Unless you really want to dive through a windscreen...
Or if you're a back seat passenger, into the driver, injuring or possibly killing them too.
It illustrates the general problem for liberty/libertarian/small government people everywhere.
The more government does the more government does.
Go back pre NHS, disability benefits etc and government had no interest in whether people injured themselves by acting foolishly. Horses and carts required no seatbelts.
But once government is responsible for the cost of the NHS and disability payments, there have fiscal reasons for interfering with this and almost every aspect of people's lives.
So we end up in the situation where even whether you exercise or play sport is a matter for government and it has its own minister and funding. Unthinkable not all that long ago.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
If you'd survived a crash by not wearing a seatbelt, you might feel differently. Or not, who knows.
Oh god not this old chestnut of not wearing a seat belt saved my life. The stats speak for themselves. Yes you might drown because you crashed into a pond and couldn't get it off, but you are more likely to die through not wearing one. Same argument as why we should all smoke 100 cigarettes a day because you can find one 100 year old who did.
I have no idea why you're getting tetchy with me; I haven't passed any judgement on whether I think he's right or not.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
The unwittingly ironic name of the Women and Equalities department is the perfect example of how some who claim to be in favour of equality view the world through rather tinted glasses.
There was a good story the other day, that Facebook’s “Trust and Safety Board” have told the company to rescind their ban on showing women’s nipples.
Their reasoning though, is nothing to do with the campaign by feminsist groups to ‘free the nipple’, but because the academic trust and safety board find themselves unable to define ‘woman’. The board said Meta's policy was based on a “binary view of gender and a distinction between male and female bodies”, meaning the rules were “unclear” on how they applied to transgender and non-binary people.
You can have tremendous fun with people desperate to not offend against any part of The Liturgy.
My problem is I instantly lose respect for anyone who does it, which sometimes can border on contempt depending on how often and how shamelessly they do it. I roll my eyes, shake my head, and quietly become disappointed in them.
It indicates weaknesses, sheepish and a lack of an ability for independent thought to me - most importantly, the leaders who do it the most I've found to be the ones with the worst personal values in practice: the faster he proclaimed his virtue the faster did we count our spoons
I have a different angle - the performative stuff is a smoke screen to avoid real, required change.
Hence my belief that Chief Superintendent Savage (of the Met) has passed all his diversity exams and is now enforcing a policy of arresting people for asking for their coffee as black. Arresting black people for doing that, that is.
I didn't think you had to in the back seat. Live and learn.
Really? Since about 30 years ago!
Thought it only applied to children. Wonder what other laws have escaped my attention?
Unbelted children are the responsibility of the car’s driver. Unbelted adults are their own responsibility - in any seat of the car which has a belt fitted.
As others have said, it doesn’t look good on the police for them to make a point of spending lots of time on something that results in a £30 fixed penalty ticket, and when the complaints are clearly politically motivated, when their attitude to much more serious crimes such as house burglaries and car thefts appears to be spotty at best.
You’re misjudging this. As we saw with party gate, politicians can’t take the “it’s only a little law” “one law for you, another for us” approach. You take the fine and move on. If anything, you swing the other way and take ownership of the whole thing and say this reminds us that seatbelts save lives.
The approach you recommend prolongs it.
I think that you are right about the attitude the politicians should take, and I’m right about the attitude the police should take.
Are seatbelts less serious than car theft? I’m not sure. I know where you are coming from. Crime is a big problem, hugely damaging and apparently out of control under this government. However, seatbelts save many lives. The law is there for a reason, like speed limits. Take the fine. Eat humble pie. Move on.
“Are seatbelts less serious than car theft?”
Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.
One is a very minor offence, dealt with by means of a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty. The other is a permanent deprivation of someone’s often expensive property, that can and does result in a term of imprisonment. In aggravated cases, it can be sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.
A feature of the last decade or so is the emergence of a pathological obsession with safety, and a shift in thinking towards the notion that government should protect people from all kinds of harm, such that were previously thought to be solely within the remit of personal responsibility. It is leading to the embrace of elements of totalitarianism and socialism.
Eh? Putting on a seat belt? Legislation brought in by Tories 30 years ago. Really? I suspect most people don’t mind. Not a huge loss of freedom. Unless you really want to dive through a windscreen...
Or if you're a back seat passenger, into the driver, injuring or possibly killing them too.
It illustrates the general problem for liberty/libertarian/small government people everywhere.
The more government does the more government does.
Go back pre NHS, disability benefits etc and government had no interest in whether people injured themselves by acting foolishly. Horses and carts required no seatbelts.
But once government is responsible for the cost of the NHS and disability payments, there have fiscal reasons for interfering with this and almost every aspect of people's lives.
So we end up in the situation where even whether you exercise or play sport is a matter for government and it has its own minister and funding. Unthinkable not all that long ago.
It's unstoppable, and time it was stopped.
The PM has videoed himself not wearing a seatbelt, something according to the gov't that must be done: https://www.gov.uk/seat-belts-law
Now I got 4 points, about a hundred quid fine and a twenty quid victim surcharge for running about a yard over this stop line shorturl.at/eitxD around 2014 I think (Don't ask). So it's quite simple really - as the PM has provided video evidence of his minor traffic offence he needs to be given a fine of 100 to 500 quid as per the law.
It turns out that the Labour whips did intervene following this week’s hideous attacks by fellow Labour MPs on @RosieDuffield1. They chastised Rosie herself. This isn’t just about rogue misogynist MPs. It goes to the core of the party https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1616362246619144192
Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — perhaps less surprising — and started to heckle every woman who spoke of their similar concerns. Later, when Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP and friend, spoke of her concerns around safeguarding, he accused her of being a bigot before crossing over to the Tory side of the Chamber to sit on the side benches, very close to her, staring as if to intimidate her.
@IanDunt: Only Rishi Sunak could give away billions and still turn it into a bad news day
I don't quite agree with this. Someone else said that when you are down/behind in the polls, everything is spun against you, and when you are up/leading in the polls its the opposite.
People are looking for anything and the seatbeltgate is just the easy one. If it hadn't been that, it would have been the areas the "missed out". If not that it would have been Zahawi's tax issues. And on, and on and on.
Yes, it was someone yesterday quoting Tony Blair.
Now there are plenty of pictures on social media of other politicians sitting in a car without a seatbelt.
No doubt If the police don’t do anything about it there will be a crowdfunder from the Good Law Project looking to take further action.
If Rishi had anything about him he'd just send £500 to the treasury and match it with £500 to a road safety charity before he gets any sort of official fine.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
So the SCOTUS leak investigation only questioned the clerks and staff, but not the Justices. Every staffer and clerk signed a sworn affidavit stating they didn't leak the Dobbs opinion. Guess who that leaves? https://mobile.twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1616195781622652928
It turns out that the Labour whips did intervene following this week’s hideous attacks by fellow Labour MPs on @RosieDuffield1. They chastised Rosie herself. This isn’t just about rogue misogynist MPs. It goes to the core of the party https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1616362246619144192
Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — perhaps less surprising — and started to heckle every woman who spoke of their similar concerns. Later, when Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP and friend, spoke of her concerns around safeguarding, he accused her of being a bigot before crossing over to the Tory side of the Chamber to sit on the side benches, very close to her, staring as if to intimidate her.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
If she’s feeling burnt out, UN Sec Gen is a fairly stressful, up-all-hours job.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she did some low key stuff for a year or 2, before looking at roles like that.
The next step will be interesting for those who were skeptical of her claimed reasons for quitting. I'm not, but I would raise an eyebrow if she went straight into another similarly demanding* job.
*not that there are that many jobs as demanding as leading a country. She could easily head a charity/NGO etc and still see that as chillaxing time!
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
"Libertarian" has become a term that intelligent but selfish people use to provide a kind of moral and philosophical veneer for their selfishness. Which is a shame because the idea of letting people do what they want is the best starting point for organising society, but like all ideas pushed to its limit it becomes grotesque.
My LinkedIn came alive yesterday with gushingly right-on tributes to Saint Jacinda, who has now Ascended.
Those who did it were so predictable I might now have to add her to the Woke pantheon.
Have you read avoid the abuse she’s had? Not good. Makes U.K.politics look civilised.
I have no time for abuse.
Nevertheless, I think she been deified - almost like a political Princess Diana, because she does empathy so well and people see something of their own struggles in her - and that means sometimes people won't brook any criticism of her.
In my view, she's been a pretty poor New Zealand PM but if I'd dared to mention that I'd have been criticised in hysterical and emotional terms, probably accused of misogyny and shot at dawn.
As far as I can see she is the one who has been seriously threatened.
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
I wonder what next for JA? I doubt she's just going to disappear into domesticity or academia. She must be a decent shout for next UN Sec Gen (who will certainly be a woman).
If she’s feeling burnt out, UN Sec Gen is a fairly stressful, up-all-hours job.
Is it? The UN seems to have almost zero contemporary relevance. The organisation is completely invisible on the SMO. Contrast with the antebellum period of Iraq II. eBay Morgan Freeman was never off the TV.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
Libertarians got a reboot in the pandemic opposing lockdowns. In New Zealand with ACT for example, hence Ardern's problems and in Canada under new Conservative leader Poilievre in particular
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
If you'd survived a crash by not wearing a seatbelt, you might feel differently. Or not, who knows.
Oh god not this old chestnut of not wearing a seat belt saved my life. The stats speak for themselves. Yes you might drown because you crashed into a pond and couldn't get it off, but you are more likely to die through not wearing one. Same argument as why we should all smoke 100 cigarettes a day because you can find one 100 year old who did.
I have no idea why you're getting tetchy with me; I haven't passed any judgement on whether I think he's right or not.
a) not tetchy b) not talking about him (I assume him being Sunak?)
I'm referring to you alluding to the claim that you might be safer not wearing a seat belt because of the very few times it might be negative to do so and couching it the terms of not you but Joe Bloggs where that happened so he might feel different about it.
He understandably might. He would be wrong. So what is your point? Why make it unless you feel you should have the freedom to not wear a belt?
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
A lot of people are projecting what Labour will do in office, yet there's very little they have actually said about it. I don't see them doing this because the bedrock of their support is middle class urbanites who will lose from this policy.
It turns out that the Labour whips did intervene following this week’s hideous attacks by fellow Labour MPs on @RosieDuffield1. They chastised Rosie herself. This isn’t just about rogue misogynist MPs. It goes to the core of the party https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1616362246619144192
Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — perhaps less surprising — and started to heckle every woman who spoke of their similar concerns. Later, when Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP and friend, spoke of her concerns around safeguarding, he accused her of being a bigot before crossing over to the Tory side of the Chamber to sit on the side benches, very close to her, staring as if to intimidate her.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle is a bullying, arrogant, stupid, nasty twat?
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
You missed out misogynist.....and its not just a LRM problem:
After Tuesday’s outburst, came the silence. Not from Russell-Moyle, but from Keir Starmer’s office. It’s a cycle I’ve come to know well. First, speak up in defence of women’s sex-based rights. And then, face the consequences. Alone.....
To be fair, Emily Thornberry, shadow Attorney General, did come out and say that the debate wasn’t “Labour’s finest hour”, before clarifying that this was because it distracted from “the most vulnerable in society, who are trans people”. Keir, meanwhile, said nothing......
But from the Labour Party — silence. They think the transgender debate is nothing more than a culture-war issue. A weapon used by the Tories to whip up division. It is a smokescreen that has nothing to do with women’s rights. Ordinary people don’t care about mixed-sex changing rooms. Or the prospect of men entering women’s refuges. Or the erasure of the word “cervix”. What this debate is really about, women are told, is bigotry and prejudice.
If Rishi had anything about him he'd just send £500 to the treasury and match it with £500 to a road safety charity before he gets any sort of official fine.
With his track record the notes would probably be counterfeit.....
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
It turns out that the Labour whips did intervene following this week’s hideous attacks by fellow Labour MPs on @RosieDuffield1. They chastised Rosie herself. This isn’t just about rogue misogynist MPs. It goes to the core of the party https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1616362246619144192
Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — perhaps less surprising — and started to heckle every woman who spoke of their similar concerns. Later, when Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP and friend, spoke of her concerns around safeguarding, he accused her of being a bigot before crossing over to the Tory side of the Chamber to sit on the side benches, very close to her, staring as if to intimidate her.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
An excellent post. I wish I had written it. I also think @Malmesbury comment in reply was very good also.
I consider myself to be pretty libertarian, but I have nothing in common with libertarians who, for instance, think ramming their religion down my throat and objecting to other's religions (no matter how daft I think those religions are) is being libertarian, as per the US right.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
US libertarianism in particular seems to have descended into a kind of selfish “don’t tread on me” toddler-like refusal to engage with the complexities of the real world.
”The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's, But Not Women's, Reproductive Autonomy
Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion)...”
So US libertarians want freedom from the consequences of sex if it means them paying for children they didn’t want, but to be able to force their partners to bear children if they personally do want them. How very hypocritical...
I have run into libertarians online who would have nothing to do with this kind of nonsense, but the people who will actually follow through on the tenets of liberty to their logical conclusion that they have to apply equally to everyone instead of stopping at the “what’s in it for me” point are sadly few and far between.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
US libertarianism in particular seems to have descended into a kind of selfish “don’t tread on me” toddler-like refusal to engage with the complexities of the real world.
”The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's, But Not Women's, Reproductive Autonomy
Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion)...”
So US libertarians want freedom from the consequences of sex if it means them paying for children they didn’t want, but to be able to force their partners to bear children if they personally do want them. How very hypocritical...
I have run into libertarians online who would have nothing to do with this kind of nonsense, but the people who will actually follow through on the tenets of liberty to their logical conclusion that they have to apply equally to everyone instead of stopping at the “what’s in it for me” point are sadly few and far between.
The US Libertarian Party actually opposes bans on abortion, seeing it as a matter of individual conscience.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
Most of the jobs created by the old regional development agencies, appeared to be in their own bureaucracy. A great demonstration of how not to do it.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
A lot of people are projecting what Labour will do in office, yet there's very little they have actually said about it. I don't see them doing this because the bedrock of their support is middle class urbanites who will lose from this policy.
I think you are right. They will talk the talk but that is it. Labour no longer really cares about working class communities, wherever they are. Labour is now all about managing expectations rather than any real transformative change.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
I didn't think you had to in the back seat. Live and learn.
Really? Since about 30 years ago!
Thought it only applied to children. Wonder what other laws have escaped my attention?
Unbelted children are the responsibility of the car’s driver. Unbelted adults are their own responsibility - in any seat of the car which has a belt fitted.
As others have said, it doesn’t look good on the police for them to make a point of spending lots of time on something that results in a £30 fixed penalty ticket, and when the complaints are clearly politically motivated, when their attitude to much more serious crimes such as house burglaries and car thefts appears to be spotty at best.
You’re misjudging this. As we saw with party gate, politicians can’t take the “it’s only a little law” “one law for you, another for us” approach. You take the fine and move on. If anything, you swing the other way and take ownership of the whole thing and say this reminds us that seatbelts save lives.
The approach you recommend prolongs it.
I think that you are right about the attitude the politicians should take, and I’m right about the attitude the police should take.
Are seatbelts less serious than car theft? I’m not sure. I know where you are coming from. Crime is a big problem, hugely damaging and apparently out of control under this government. However, seatbelts save many lives. The law is there for a reason, like speed limits. Take the fine. Eat humble pie. Move on.
“Are seatbelts less serious than car theft?”
Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes.
One is a very minor offence, dealt with by means of a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty. The other is a permanent deprivation of someone’s often expensive property, that can and does result in a term of imprisonment. In aggravated cases, it can be sent to the Crown Court for sentencing.
I think I'm right in saying that if someone causes a car accident and is done for death by dangerous driving, if the person that died wasn't wearing a seatbelt (or was killed because someone else in the car wasn't wearing a seatbelt), that doesn't make any difference to the sentence.
And that I think underlines just how small a crime not wearing a seatbelt is.
Famously of course it’s probably what did for Princess Di in 1997.
Everybody in that vehicle died, except the one wearing a seatbelt. Who was, ironically, her bodyguard IIRC?
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
"Libertarian" has become a term that intelligent but selfish people use to provide a kind of moral and philosophical veneer for their selfishness. Which is a shame because the idea of letting people do what they want is the best starting point for organising society, but like all ideas pushed to its limit it becomes grotesque.
Except usually those pushing it to its limits are its opponents seeking to discredit it as a philosophy.
100% houses/bungalows More over 50s than average 97.7% born in UK 96.2% white Longer than average commute. > average L4, L5 and L6: Lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations
Today, Labour leads in the polls in a way it hasn’t done since the Nineties. It commands confidence on voting intention, public likeability and most importantly of all, it is ahead of the Conservatives on the economy.
Yet another factor may also hinder a Tory comeback: apathy. One story of the 1997 general election that is told less often was the collapse in turnout (which hit a postwar low of 71 per cent).
Interesting thread by former tank brigade commander.
https://mobile.twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1616220288001396737 My aim in this thread is not to argue whether they should be provided. I think it is obvious they should. If Russia can deploy T90s or even its new T-14s (according to British Intelligence), why are we denying similar capabilities to #Ukraine?...
...We need to stop looking for excuses like ‘this is a complex system’. I don’t recall these arguments when M1 tanks went to Iraq, or Egypt. And as someone who commanded a brigade with M1 tanks, if the Australian Army with its very light logistic footprint (and lack of tank strategic sustainment for the first decade in service) can do it, the Ukrainians definitely can!
The thing that interests me is this - the M1 was designed for rapid power pack changes. That is, you crane out the engine and gearbox, drop in another.
In Leeds for work today. Drove because the train was £100 for a return ticket. Dogshit.
C’est la vie
There are a number of political decisions where an Impassionate algorithm could almost certainly do a better job than real humans, and one category is capital investment.
It seems like an absolute no brainer that it would pay off hugely to build way more rail infrastructure across the country, and subsidise if if necessary. The most obvious candidate being NPR. It would translate straight into economic gains as countless examples across Europe show. Same with funding huge increases in thermal insulation and energy efficiency, and solar installations on roofs. Immediate payback in reduced energy costs. Plenty of others too.
The human pattern is that they always seem a bit too expensive to do now, or the payoff is too long, then in a decade’s time everyone deeply regrets missing the opportunity, but argues it’s now twice as expensive. Then a decade later etc.
Take decisions on new nuclear power a decade ago.
Wasn’t there a decision about nuclear power stations, early in the Coalition government, where the Lib Dem’s argued that it was pointless? Since the new station would only online at the ridiculously far off date of… 2025.
Exactly. One of Clegg’s moments of silliness all because the party still had elements of anti-nuclear bias in it (which have largely gone now thankfully). Contrast with Davey’s more forward looking policy towards wind power which is paying dividends now.
Nearly all serious infrastructure is a decade+ from "Go" to ribbon cutting. And no, most of that isn't performative bullshit.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
Most of the jobs created by the old regional development agencies, appeared to be in their own bureaucracy. A great demonstration of how not to do it.
I hope you are wrong, but I'm pretty sure you are not and they are all as bad as one another. In the 90's I made quite a bit of money selling stuff or providing services to the old Training and Enterprise Councils (set up by the Tories). Utterly useless organisations, that achieved nothing before being disbanded, using up Government resources with no useful outcome whatsoever.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
Is there any debate that Brexit seriously hampered the UK's appeal as a location for new battery and EV factories ? That was clear from the start, and quite a few of us (including some who voted for Brexit) have long argued it required serious efforts by government - which haven't happened - to make sure they were still built here.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
The state of the battery market for TVs is such that, if you build a factory producing good quality cells, someone will buy them. There is massive under capacity worldwide.
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
The state of the battery market for TVs is such that, if you build a factory producing good quality cells, someone will buy them. There is massive under capacity worldwide.
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
The budget was in the billions ! Surely a top team of REAL experts to convince the car industry could and should have been fitted in for the money ?
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
So they're going to put an even heavier thumb on the scales in favour of Tory constituencies ?
The entire program is a travesty. Central government deciding local priorities, in a manner either arbitrary or party political.
You thought that politicians spending money wasn't going to get political?
One of the main objections to this kind of thing, is that the "picking winners" rapidly becomes "picking the politically useful winners"
The first layer of this is simple patronage - every government tries to direct spending to the constituencies of its MPs.
The second layer is picking winners that fit with some bullshit "strategy" invented in Whitehall that doesn't actually meet reality. Hence the decades of obsession with hydrogen powered vehicles - because this would tick certain political boxes.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Agree. I suspect Labour will do something like this if they get into office - after all they were the ones who came up with regional development agencies in the first place.
Most of the jobs created by the old regional development agencies, appeared to be in their own bureaucracy. A great demonstration of how not to do it.
I hope you are wrong, but I'm pretty sure you are not and they are all as bad as one another. In the 90's I made quite a bit of money selling stuff or providing services to the old Training and Enterprise Councils (set up by the Tories). Utterly useless organisations, that achieved nothing before being disbanded, using up Government resources with no useful outcome whatsoever.
My experience, from two decades ago, was that they cared a lot about inputs, processes, and headlines about money spent - but not so much on outcomes, nor seeking value for money.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
US libertarianism in particular seems to have descended into a kind of selfish “don’t tread on me” toddler-like refusal to engage with the complexities of the real world.
”The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's, But Not Women's, Reproductive Autonomy
Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion)...”
So US libertarians want freedom from the consequences of sex if it means them paying for children they didn’t want, but to be able to force their partners to bear children if they personally do want them. How very hypocritical...
I have run into libertarians online who would have nothing to do with this kind of nonsense, but the people who will actually follow through on the tenets of liberty to their logical conclusion that they have to apply equally to everyone instead of stopping at the “what’s in it for me” point are sadly few and far between.
I wish that John Hospers was still around to set those kind of idiots on fire.
They weren't significantly safer in the 60s. Most of us survived relatively unscathed.
Survivor bias.
Too true.
My favourite was the thing that looked a bit like a 20ft metal shuttlecock sat on a large metal pole. Quite lethal if you were trying to climb on once it was in motion, as it both rotated with considerable momentum and swayed from side to side at the same time.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
The state of the battery market for TVs is such that, if you build a factory producing good quality cells, someone will buy them. There is massive under capacity worldwide.
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
On the wider implications of this sort of screwup. this is interesting:
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
The state of the battery market for TVs is such that, if you build a factory producing good quality cells, someone will buy them. There is massive under capacity worldwide.
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
The budget was in the billions ! Surely a top team of REAL experts to convince the car industry could and should have been fitted in for the money ?
It is remarkable how often people don't hire experts who are actually expert.
Consider the following CV
A lady started teaching primary after the usual training. She got excellent reports and rose to deputy-head, doing a part time masters in education on the way. She took a break to do a PhD - specialising in looking at primary education systems around the world. Returning to teaching, she got the job of starting a new primary school from scratch. Which was extremely successful.
She was turned down by the DfE for a consulting/policy post, on the grounds of insufficient relevant experience in education.
She went on to be a high flyer in another area of public service.
Sunak tribulations reminds me of the dying days of Gordon Brown, he would try some PR photoshoot and there was always something picked up that had gone wrong or just looked weird, and then the grid was out the window as the media focus would be on that, not whatever he was there to promote. Its a combination of poor team but also when the media decide times up, they are always on the look out for whatever it is.
In fact, no not Gordon Brown, more Ed Miliband....he had so many photoshoot gaffes (not just the bacon sandwich) and the media decided that they were going highlight every one of them......"at least I tried"...
I am not known for defending Tories but I believe that Senior politicians, VIPs etc are instructed by their protection detail NOT to wear seat belts. Has anyone got a video of Chas or Betty arriving at an event by car?
I know someone who survived a serious crash (beltless) by being thrown clear of the wreck. Now never wears one. Switzerland. Don't know if it's the law there or not. I would imagine statistically it's mostly the other way around.
It’s worth pointing out that you can kill somebody in the front seat as well if you’re not wearing a seatbelt and thrown forward in a crash.
Put it this way, anyone who has a seatbelt available and doesn’t wear one is a muppet. Law or no law, it’s simple common sense.
Some on the right appear to have gone a bit funny. Seatbelts is a strange ditch for libertarians to die in.
'Strange ditch to die in' is a pretty good summary of libertarianism generally I think.
Libertarianism needs a bit of a reboot. It’s been taken over and distorted by the culture war American right who have a tendency to export their mental distortions to the rest of the Anglosphere. Extreme freedom of action for “me and my people”, focused seemingly on freedom to do things that might hurt others (polluting stuff, driving fast in residential streets, dismantling workers’ rights) but repressive authoritarianism and strong handed policing for the rest. That’s not libertarianism.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
American Libertarianism has fallen down a strange, dark hole. And largely stopped being about liberty.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
US libertarianism in particular seems to have descended into a kind of selfish “don’t tread on me” toddler-like refusal to engage with the complexities of the real world.
”The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's, But Not Women's, Reproductive Autonomy
Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion)...”
So US libertarians want freedom from the consequences of sex if it means them paying for children they didn’t want, but to be able to force their partners to bear children if they personally do want them. How very hypocritical...
I have run into libertarians online who would have nothing to do with this kind of nonsense, but the people who will actually follow through on the tenets of liberty to their logical conclusion that they have to apply equally to everyone instead of stopping at the “what’s in it for me” point are sadly few and far between.
The US Libertarian Party actually opposes bans on abortion, seeing it as a matter of individual conscience.
It is evangelicals in the GOP pushing for abortion bans, not libertarians
You’ve misunderstood the point of the paper I think: This isn’t about people pushing for blanket abortion bans - on the contrary, those wanting to be able to walk away from childcare are probably using the possibility of access to abortion as a justification why they shouldn’t have pay. But there seem to be an obvious contradiction in expecting women to carry all the costs of giving birth if you don’t want the child, but forcing women to give birth if you do want the child.
I wonder if they expect childcare from the woman in the latter case?
They weren't significantly safer in the 60s. Most of us survived relatively unscathed.
Survivor bias.
Too true.
My favourite was the thing that looked a bit like a 20ft metal shuttlecock sat on a large metal pole. Quite lethal if you were trying to climb on once it was in motion, as it both rotated with considerable momentum and swayed from side to side at the same time.
Gosh I had forgotten them. When I think of the places I used to play as a kid I have no idea how I survived. I loved building sites and derelict houses for which you were completely free to enter and roam around. No boarding up in those days. Plus rivers and canals I used to play by and even in.
Predictably reasonable and calm intervention from @joannaccherry on the GRR Bill and s35. She’s right, this Bill would have been subject to other forms of legal scrutiny for human rights and equality issues. Women voicing concerns shouldn’t be bullied or harassed for that.
If HMG are serious about levelling up (they're not: this is scraps of bread from the dinner table with heavy branding) then they need a Department of the Regions invested with an annual budget of £10-15bn pa to do it, nationwide.
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Matching the foreign aid budget (which is around the level you are suggesting, I think?) would be politically smart.
Better still give the regions proper devolved power to raise their own taxes and spend their own money. As happens in many of our OECD partners.
That doesn't make sense because those regions are already in the slow growth lane, allowing local governments to set higher taxes and eat it up in more bureaucracy will just make it worse. It also would have zero redistributive effect which is ultimately what any kind of levelling up fund amounts to. I think a department for regions makes a lot of sense and fund it with £15-20bn per year for smaller infrastructure projects, metro systems, airports, intercity links etc...
Swings and roundabouts, though.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
No you use a formula based on deprivation per region to give them an annual budget for the next 5 years and then they spend the money locally on projects that will increase the local growth rate from a list of approved project types. It could range from energy generation and storage to urban redevelopment funding with very tough delivery deadlines and clawback for non-delivery.
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
Raising much more money locally, incentivises local authorities to build more housing!
But this fund shouldn't be used for housing, it should be used to improve the potential growth rate of the region. If you do that then the housing will follow as people move into the area for the jobs and lifestyle. In most of the places with high deprivation housing isn't an issue anyway, two up two down houses can be had for under £100k. Housing is the key issue in London, SE and East because the three regions are highly developed already and it's where the jobs are so people want to move here causing housing shortage. Make other parts of the country just as developed and the nation's 24-35 year olds won't want to move here to start their career.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
Britishvolt would have been ideal for that sort of thing. Beyond belief that those running it didn't make some big and generous offers to one or several of the existing manufacturers (GM, Toyota, SAIC) before going ahead. I expect - and please do not mistake me for a remoaner here but I can potentially see it being an issue NOT being in the EU was a big issue as any plant based here would have had to have clear hurdles that EU based plants would not for integrating cars into the (large) EU market.
The state of the battery market for TVs is such that, if you build a factory producing good quality cells, someone will buy them. There is massive under capacity worldwide.
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
I don't think that's entirely true.
A plant of any significance requires investment in the billions, will take a number of years to achieve full production, and will then take years to show a profit on that investment. Meanwhile, there are dozens of plants being built - usually on the basis of contracted orders form major manufacturers located in the same country (or economic area like the EU). (And as an aside, look at how long it took Panasonic, one of the most experienced manufacturers, to start trading profitably on their US plant.) If you had a gigafactory producing now, you could sell everything you manufactured; in five years' time you will have to to compete on price (that is already to some extent true).
But if we want a vehicle industry at all, we have to get on with it.
They weren't significantly safer in the 60s. Most of us survived relatively unscathed.
Survivor bias.
Too true.
My favourite was the thing that looked a bit like a 20ft metal shuttlecock sat on a large metal pole. Quite lethal if you were trying to climb on once it was in motion, as it both rotated with considerable momentum and swayed from side to side at the same time.
Gosh I had forgotten them. When I think of the places I used to play as a kid I have no idea how I survived. I loved building sites and derelict houses for which you were completely free to enter and roam around. No boarding up in those days. Plus rivers and canals I used to play by and even in.
My favourite was a tall slide with barely any railings at the top….set in concrete….
That's interesting, although I don't think I learned anything about my neighbourhood that I didn't know or guess already from living there for over a decade! Less white, more big houses and flats, more social renting, fewer old people, way more professionals, way more graduates, more employed, more atheists, fewer 2 car households, less deprivation, shorter commutes, more WFH.
The best thing about using big central fund budgets is that areas can decide what the priority is, for example if I were in charge of the budget for the Manchester area I'd club together with Liverpool and build an intercity metro that covers both Manchester and Liverpool with multiple underground lines and stations that serve the commuter towns to both that lie in between them as well as the city suburbs. That is a project that will cost tens of billions over a 10-15 year period but it is also something that is necessary for both cities to maximise their economic potential and really become a legitimate rival to London in the North of England for jobs and investment.
Central government is never going to fund it directly because the treasury beancounters will stamp it out as not value for money and raising the money locally seems impossible given the scale of what is necessary. Having an annual infrastructure fund that would enable these kinds of decisions to be taken locally is the only way they will happen, Boris was right about needing to level up the rest of the country, it is glaringly obvious to me, yet the Tories have given up the opportunity to really change the national landscape and I don't think Labour have got any kind of vision to make it happen.
They weren't significantly safer in the 60s. Most of us survived relatively unscathed.
Survivor bias.
Too true.
My favourite was the thing that looked a bit like a 20ft metal shuttlecock sat on a large metal pole. Quite lethal if you were trying to climb on once it was in motion, as it both rotated with considerable momentum and swayed from side to side at the same time.
Gosh I had forgotten them. When I think of the places I used to play as a kid I have no idea how I survived. I loved building sites and derelict houses for which you were completely free to enter and roam around. No boarding up in those days. Plus rivers and canals I used to play by and even in.
Yes, I used to wander along the completely unbarriered, half completed M62 at weekends when they weren't working.
Comments
And this makes it Rishi Sunak's problem
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1616352849201332224
It indicates weaknesses, sheepish and a lack of an ability for independent thought to me - most importantly, the leaders who do it the most I've found to be the ones with the worst personal values in practice: the faster he proclaimed his virtue the faster did we count our spoons
One reason people get pissed off with politicians and foreign aid is that they're happy to defend and virtue-signal about it for a very generous budget (with plenty of sanctimony on top) but plead parsimony when it comes to opening their purse for their own people.
Labour deputy leader Ange… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1616354165810253827
Interesting reading in the light of PBers yesterday querying the nominal inflation rate in view of the actual shop prices - turns out, rightly so.
Which have been looking at real world food inflation: in summary, 10-21%* at present, depending on the supermarket, with the cheap ones hit worst and Ocado least.
And of grocery ranges, own brand budget stuff is worst hit. Oh my fur and whiskers.
Milk 26% ...
* Both annual and monthly, pretty much. .
Her global impact as NZ PM has been remarkable. Honestly, I think 6 years is a decent run for PMs and leading politicians I can’t think of any that did their best work after 6 years in a role.
"Retail sales fell by 1% in December, according to official figures, as shoppers cut back on spending.
The Office for National Statistics said that retailers told them "consumers are cutting back on spending because of increased prices and affordability concerns".
There was a sharp drop at non-food stores, but food stores also reported a fall in sales.
The ONS also revised down figures for November.
It said that sales volumes fell by 0.5% instead of the original estimate of a 0.4% drop."
What is never reported is the accuracy of these figures. Reporting a 0.4% change if the numbers are +/-3% is just nonsense.
https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/01/19/zahawi_story/
A lot of these bids look like things that councils should be able to do out of core funding, but can't because of austerity and social care.
And the thing that probably would help prosperity most- improve transport within the second division cities (the sort of places BBC regional news comes from)- remains a pipe dream.
To my mind there are many irresolvable contradictions here; IE, why is it that people have to wear seatbelts in cars but not when they are travelling on busses? And how is it possible for motorcycling to still be allowed when it is so dangerous?
People care about things that affect them far more. The cost of food, energy, the declining standard of living, the cost of living crisis.
If the Tories and their supporters seriously think they can win an election on the back of declining living standards by picking a fight on so-called wokeness which has been allowed to proliferate over the past decade when they were in charge then they truly are desperate.
Now if inflation is down to 3 or 4% by the time of the next election and the worst of it seems over then they may have a chance of minimising their impending defeat. But if they fight on woke issues that is just desperation as they would have nothing else to offer.
I would smile if she got a gig with the WEF. That would certainly trigger plenty of people.
Libertarians are at their best a useful adjunct to liberalism and a counterweight to authoritarianism and control freakery. The gap between personal freedom and collective authoritarianism is a major reason I’m a Lib Dem not a Labour supporter. The freedom to live life the way I want so long as it doesn’t directly harm others - could do with a bit more of that.
EVERYONE knows I am opposed to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. However, I believe the problems it creates should be addressed in Scotland if not by our Parliament, then by our courts.
That said, to describe the use of the Section 35 power to block the bill as an attack on devolution doesn’t really make sense. It is of the essence of devolution that the devolved Parliament is subservient to the UK Parliament that’s why we as nationalists want independence.
In an independent Scotland the passing of the bill by a parliamentary majority would not necessarily have guaranteed that it would have become law without further challenge.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23263753.joanna-cherry-gender-bill-might-faced-legal-challenge-post-indy/#comments-anchor
People are looking for anything and the seatbeltgate is just the easy one. If it hadn't been that, it would have been the areas the "missed out". If not that it would have been Zahawi's tax issues. And on, and on and on.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she did some low key stuff for a year or 2, before looking at roles like that.
It would be interesting to see arguments against that.
Actual playground in 1912 😮
https://mobile.twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1615865497001799680
They weren't significantly safer in the 60s.
Most of us survived relatively unscathed.
The more government does the more government does.
Go back pre NHS, disability benefits etc and government had no interest in whether people injured themselves by acting foolishly. Horses and carts required no seatbelts.
But once government is responsible for the cost of the NHS and disability payments, there have fiscal reasons for interfering with this and almost every aspect of people's lives.
So we end up in the situation where even whether you exercise or play sport is a matter for government and it has its own minister and funding. Unthinkable not all that long ago.
It's unstoppable, and time it was stopped.
Hence my belief that Chief Superintendent Savage (of the Met) has passed all his diversity exams and is now enforcing a policy of arresting people for asking for their coffee as black. Arresting black people for doing that, that is.
Now I got 4 points, about a hundred quid fine and a twenty quid victim surcharge for running about a yard over this stop line shorturl.at/eitxD around 2014 I think (Don't ask). So it's quite simple really - as the PM has provided video evidence of his minor traffic offence he needs to be given a fine of 100 to 500 quid as per the law.
@RosieDuffield1. They chastised Rosie herself. This isn’t just about rogue misogynist MPs. It goes to the core of the party
https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1616362246619144192
Lloyd Russell-Moyle went puce — perhaps less surprising — and started to heckle every woman who spoke of their similar concerns. Later, when Miriam Cates, a Conservative MP and friend, spoke of her concerns around safeguarding, he accused her of being a bigot before crossing over to the Tory side of the Chamber to sit on the side benches, very close to her, staring as if to intimidate her.
https://unherd.com/2023/01/the-labour-party-has-a-woman-problem/
Now there are plenty of pictures on social media of other politicians sitting in a car without a seatbelt.
No doubt If the police don’t do anything about it there will be a crowdfunder from the Good Law Project looking to take further action.
Libertarianism, for me, is a philosophical tool for considering the boundaries between competing rights. The discussion of that boundary is at the heart of nearly all politics.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1616195781622652928
I blame Hunter Biden.
I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
That's as astonishing as hearing Jacob Rees-Mogg is a posh hypocrite.
A single England-wide process gives smoother transfer and might be more efficient (though writing bids isn't that efficient). But regions, cities and towns doing it for themselves maximises the "skin in the game" factor.
But the brilliance or not of the process is second to having the necessary amount of cash in the pot. So this plan isn't really going to help, is it;
Govt scrambling to head off a major red well rebellion over levelling up - ministers & officials will speak to councils which missed out to help them finesse applications for the 3rd round which will come before the next election. Story theipaper:
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1616352326469693440
*not that there are that many jobs as demanding as leading a country. She could easily head a charity/NGO etc and still see that as chillaxing time!
Raising the money locally may be part of the solution but ultimately I don't see how cutting up the pie into slightly different sized slices makes any difference, the pie just needs to be bigger in some parts of the country and that will only come with national funding and essentially a fiscal transfer from London and the SE for £15-20bn per year for local infrastructure and growth potential improvement projects.
b) not talking about him (I assume him being Sunak?)
I'm referring to you alluding to the claim that you might be safer not wearing a seat belt because of the very few times it might be negative to do so and couching it the terms of not you but Joe Bloggs where that happened so he might feel different about it.
He understandably might. He would be wrong. So what is your point? Why make it unless you feel you should have the freedom to not wear a belt?
After Tuesday’s outburst, came the silence. Not from Russell-Moyle, but from Keir Starmer’s office. It’s a cycle I’ve come to know well. First, speak up in defence of women’s sex-based rights. And then, face the consequences. Alone.....
To be fair, Emily Thornberry, shadow Attorney General, did come out and say that the debate wasn’t “Labour’s finest hour”, before clarifying that this was because it distracted from “the most vulnerable in society, who are trans people”. Keir, meanwhile, said nothing......
But from the Labour Party — silence. They think the transgender debate is nothing more than a culture-war issue. A weapon used by the Tories to whip up division. It is a smokescreen that has nothing to do with women’s rights. Ordinary people don’t care about mixed-sex changing rooms. Or the prospect of men entering women’s refuges. Or the erasure of the word “cervix”. What this debate is really about, women are told, is bigotry and prejudice.
I know that is not the case.
It happens by market forces from time to time, see Liverpool as an example, loads of tech workers are moving to the cheapest parts of Liverpool because housing is cheap and they can WFH for 3 days and commute to their jobs in Manchester or central Liverpool for 2 days, but ultimately that's a very slow way of levelling up the nation, we need to catch the rest of the country up to the same level as London, SE and East much faster than the market will do it.
I consider myself to be pretty libertarian, but I have nothing in common with libertarians who, for instance, think ramming their religion down my throat and objecting to other's religions (no matter how daft I think those religions are) is being libertarian, as per the US right.
This recently published paper is a case in point: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12867
”The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's, But Not Women's, Reproductive Autonomy
Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N1 = 296; N2 = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion)...”
So US libertarians want freedom from the consequences of sex if it means them paying for children they didn’t want, but to be able to force their partners to bear children if they personally do want them. How very hypocritical...
I have run into libertarians online who would have nothing to do with this kind of nonsense, but the people who will actually follow through on the tenets of liberty to their logical conclusion that they have to apply equally to everyone instead of stopping at the “what’s in it for me” point are sadly few and far between.
https://www.lp.org/libertarians-abortion-is-a-matter-for-individual-conscience-not-public-decree/
It is evangelicals in the GOP pushing for abortion bans, not libertarians
The entire program is a travesty.
Central government deciding local priorities, in a manner either arbitrary or party political.
The ONS has a handy tool to check out the demographics of your neighbourhood:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/customprofiles/build/
Is it something to be scared of?
More over 50s than average
97.7% born in UK
96.2% white
Longer than average commute.
> average L4, L5 and L6: Lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations
Today, Labour leads in the polls in a way it hasn’t done since the Nineties. It commands confidence on voting intention, public likeability and most importantly of all, it is ahead of the Conservatives on the economy.
Yet another factor may also hinder a Tory comeback: apathy. One story of the 1997 general election that is told less often was the collapse in turnout (which hit a postwar low of 71 per cent).
https://sotn.newstatesman.com/2023/01/exclusive-tory-voters-opinion-keir-starmer-prime-minister
That was clear from the start, and quite a few of us (including some who voted for Brexit) have long argued it required serious efforts by government - which haven't happened - to make sure they were still built here.
In scathing ruling, US district court judge writes, ‘misuse of the courts by Mr Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/20/trump-and-lawyer-ordered-to-pay-1m-for-bringing-frivolous-lawsuit-against-hillary-clinton
EU car companies are importing cells from everywhere on the planet.
This is also why Tesla (and other companies) delayed the roll out of big EV trucks - they need batteries 5-10 times the size of those in an EV car. Which there are queues for. So building one truck means forgoing the profit on selling 5-10 cars.
BritishVolt failed to convince investors they could actually manage to build a good plant. Because they are an unimpressive lot, without relevant expertise.
One of the main objections to this kind of thing, is that the "picking winners" rapidly becomes "picking the politically useful winners"
The first layer of this is simple patronage - every government tries to direct spending to the constituencies of its MPs.
The second layer is picking winners that fit with some bullshit "strategy" invented in Whitehall that doesn't actually meet reality. Hence the decades of obsession with hydrogen powered vehicles - because this would tick certain political boxes.
My favourite was the thing that looked a bit like a 20ft metal shuttlecock sat on a large metal pole. Quite lethal if you were trying to climb on once it was in motion, as it both rotated with considerable momentum and swayed from side to side at the same time.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/20/super-tipping-points-climate-electric-cars-meat-emissions
Consider the following CV
A lady started teaching primary after the usual training. She got excellent reports and rose to deputy-head, doing a part time masters in education on the way. She took a break to do a PhD - specialising in looking at primary education systems around the world. Returning to teaching, she got the job of starting a new primary school from scratch. Which was extremely successful.
She was turned down by the DfE for a consulting/policy post, on the grounds of insufficient relevant experience in education.
She went on to be a high flyer in another area of public service.
I wonder if they expect childcare from the woman in the latter case?
Predictably reasonable and calm intervention from @joannaccherry on the GRR Bill and s35. She’s right, this Bill would have been subject to other forms of legal scrutiny for human rights and equality issues. Women voicing concerns shouldn’t be bullied or harassed for that.
https://twitter.com/michaelpforan/status/1616383837205848067
A plant of any significance requires investment in the billions, will take a number of years to achieve full production, and will then take years to show a profit on that investment. Meanwhile, there are dozens of plants being built - usually on the basis of contracted orders form major manufacturers located in the same country (or economic area like the EU).
(And as an aside, look at how long it took Panasonic, one of the most experienced manufacturers, to start trading profitably on their US plant.)
If you had a gigafactory producing now, you could sell everything you manufactured; in five years' time you will have to to compete on price (that is already to some extent true).
But if we want a vehicle industry at all, we have to get on with it.
BREAKING: A new Westminster election poll finds the SNP falling well short of the 50pc+ they are aiming for in their 'de facto' referendum'
- SNP 43pc
- Labour 29pc
- Tories 18pc
- LD 7pc
- Another party 2pc
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1616388040351518721?s=61&t=q5hQo-KCqF2bIdSbvQsmCg
Central government is never going to fund it directly because the treasury beancounters will stamp it out as not value for money and raising the money locally seems impossible given the scale of what is necessary. Having an annual infrastructure fund that would enable these kinds of decisions to be taken locally is the only way they will happen, Boris was right about needing to level up the rest of the country, it is glaringly obvious to me, yet the Tories have given up the opportunity to really change the national landscape and I don't think Labour have got any kind of vision to make it happen.