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Brits remain pessimistic about the where things are heading – politicalbetting.com
Brits remain pessimistic about the where things are heading – politicalbetting.com
One of the regulars in R&K polling is this question about whether people are pessimistic or optimistic about where the country is heading.
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And I don't think that under Keir that 'Things can only get better'.
The country has been in free-fall for some time.
LAB: 50% (+2)
CON: 24% (-4)
LDM: 8% (+1)
GRN: 5% (-2)
REF: 5% (+2)
SNP: 4% (=)
Via @Omnisis, On 19 January,
Changes w/ 12 January.
“It’s also quite bad for trans people. They then get conflated and associated with the predators and people who are looking to do bad things. That’s why having a stricter regime rather than a loose regime is quite important. The problem is around the rhetoric. Rather than having a disagreement on whether you think self-identification is OK or not OK, people who have a different view are then abused, insulted, called transphobic. That’s what has really toxified the debate, and made a lot of people scared to say what they think.”
https://archive.ph/rhZBt
I suspect the negotiation with HMRC started long before he got to the Treasury - what’s he supposed to do when appointed CoE? Stop discussions? As more comes out I suspect it will actually be less bad than people think but be perceived as worse…..
They need to be booted into oblivion.
*If* (and we don’t know) the fact pattern was as above it shouldn’t be a resigning matter - it’s not a matter of ethics, just an error.
I t doesn’t matter what the news is, it will be presented as bad news. It's relentlessly negative.
And on the complexity point, I know that is true and so proving intentional actions will be very difficult, but I think that is probably the point of making things so complex in the first place - so that rich people with clever lawyers can attempt tax dodges, and then go 'whoops, my bad' when caught.
Sometimes that will be genuine, sometimes it won't, and we will not be able to tell the difference because the system seems to be deliberately set up to give people opportunities to grift. And lo and behold, they do.
Past behaviour supports the idea that if the US promises Germany will follow, but you seem uninterested in facts.
I think you are being wilfully obtuse on this, or maybe you just can't stand the idea that "Germany" isn't entirely and uniquely and shamefully to blame.
What do you think of US refusal of tanks? To me it seems worse, and more worrying and more disappointing.
The UK has its challenges, but they are no more profound than, say, the US, France, Germany, or even Sweden or New Zealand are facing - albeit sometimes different.
The hyberbole on the UK is caused by our self-absorption, ignorance of the challenges that other countries are facing, familiarity breeding contempt, and a mixture of familiarity and confirmation bias.
Have you never made an incorrect prediction?
More questions. If Zahawi just made an innocent mistake and did his civic duty in cleaning it up… why did he threaten to sue people reporting on it? And try to keep those threats secret?
https://twitter.com/danneidle/status/1616843302564773891
When things go right the incumbent reaps the rewards, when they go badly the incumbent takes the kicking.
If the war is won by Ukraine and Boris Johnson is already back in No 10 he will demand all the credit, and he will get a decent share.
Cast your mind back to the banking crisis of 2008/09, a crisis spawned in the US sub-prime mortgage market, but Brown and Darling took the blame in the UK because they were in charge here. Those are the rules.
There aren't many other countries I'd prefer to live in than here, unless I was very wealthy, and when you dig a bit deeper you realise they have their challenges too.
As Adam Smith remarked to a catastrophising student “There’s a lot of ruin in a nation”
The issue for the UK is that it can no longer provide a decent standard of living to an increasing number of its population, and indeed that it is falling behind its peers in being able to do so.
Add to that the astonishing maladministration of the last several years, and you have what looks like rapid decline.
Even accounting for the bias of organs like the New York Times, this appears to be the settled opinion of the global commentariat both left and right, of the global investment community, and most of the “thinking” (ie not the Daily Mail) domestic analysts.
A new one for me: Brighton had to substitute a player for an injury received as a result of a goal celebration.
No jokes about re-entry modules.
Britain has OK demographics and multiple strengths. However it needs fundamental reform.
I’m a little pessimistic about Keir, but I cannot dismiss him, given what he’s managed to achieve for the Labour Party over the past three years.
That’s one of the multiple weird things about the US. It’s basically now normalised if you are old and rich enough (which by default all media personalities and most politicians are) but you still end up look like a fucking alien.
At worst it breeds complacency, and frankly there is still too much complacency in the UK.
OTOH, we seem to struggle to address underlying problems that we have had for a very long time: excess consumption, insufficient savings, poor capital investment, consequential poor productivity, very ordinary education for those not in our elite and enormous difficulty in just getting on with things. I suspect that most countries have at least some of these problems but they do seem particularly deep rooted here and our political class would rather talk about other things.
To the extent that the UK has challenges, it's in the speed of its global export recovery and FDI post pandemic, but that's a stretch to rapid decline and, indeed, our firm's analysis is that UK shares are underpriced and the UK economy will grow by 1.9% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025.
https://twitter.com/sputnik_not/status/1616828577374248966?s=46&t=XpXXqqaqv0sfuf1dfEqFoQ
Steven Seagal threatens to make more movies if the US continues to arm Ukraine.
Time to switch off Radio 4 and send the launch message to the Trident subs.
All other countries see themselves as explicitly needing to build something either as a “new” country (USA, post-colonial countries, Italy, Germany), or a “recovering country” (China), or to “protect” themselves (France, even Russia).
Bit like @Leon, really
I agree by the way that UK shares are underpriced, but the underlying issues, which including Brexit, are not going away. The UK is a downgraded entity.
France - has poor growth, an allergy to even the most modest fiscal reforms, serious racial segregation problems, and is under real threat of a far-right government next time.
Germany - has an illogical energy policy, stagnant population growth, growing domestic political discord, and a pass-the-buck foreign policy; it's abdicated internal and external leadership.
Sweden - has a far bigger problem with violent and gun crime than we do, with several of its major cities essentially now having no-go areas.
New Zealand - has performed poorly coming out of the pandemic, suffered serious house price falls, a stuttering economy and a crime wave.
The USA - seems to teeter on the edge of civil war, and has terrible polarisation, opioid addiction and disorder and violence in its cities, with uncontrolled borders.
Australia - looks good, but has very high house prices and looks like it might catch ablaze anytime soon.
Where else would I choose to live?
Possibly Switzerland, if I had the money, or maybe Canada (despite its puritanical public governance) - and I have a soft spot for Portugal - but I'm not sure anywhere in the West looks particularly rosy right now.
What should happen?
Probably a "D20" group that binds together Japan, South Korea, India, Auz, NZ, SA (if they sort themselves out), continental Europe, UK, Canada and the US etc with trade, defence, economics, values etc. but keeps them sovereign. Expand Five Eyes too.
Current geopolitical structures are not fit-for-purpose to defend the Western way of life, and more will need to be done in the decades to come if we're no longer going to rely on China to be the workshop of the world for cheap goods and Russia for cheap energy.
We've got more expensive inputs just as the demands for higher-value outputs have grown.
I assume he doesn't give a shit though. His position probably is: yes, I will die in just a few years but, Christ, if I have a chance of spending it with someone hotter and younger who's ok with me, then, hell, why not?
https://morningconsult.com/right-direction-wrong-track/
Britain has a huge amount still going for it, and is leading in green energy, finances, creative arts, pharmaceuticals, telecomms and digital - and we have advanced defence forces too.
We are shit at investment and management, and that's why when we crack a breakthrough our competitors always steal an edge - it's been happening for ages, and is about to happen with nuclear fusion and EVs as well.
But, nor do I think we're disappearing down the plughole.
This isn't an either or choice - when I eventually pop my clogs (hopefully, in decades to come) I expect the UK will still be a wealthy, powerful and influential country, and very comfortably in the global top ten.
We'd be having exactly the same issues inside the EU (and, indeed, it is those that led in large part to the vote to Leave) and so if we want to get past this and to solutions we need to put this aside and focus on the real problems, which are essentially domestic.
Our politicians should be setting an example, as good citizens who readily pay all their due taxes for the common good. Sunak should sack Zahawi forthwith.
Watch this space. TLDR maybe there’s hope after all.
If I was in Glasgow today I would have feared for my safety. If this is what I face as an MP then what hope is there for vulnerable women who want to raise concerns about the impact of the #GRRBill on their dignity, safety, or privacy?
I am particularly struck by the number who, having reached France, want to continue on to Britain.
'Magnificent Desolation' only briefly mentions going to the Moon. Instead, it focusses on what happened to Buzz afterwards: the way an intelligent, driven man in the prime of his life achieves a brilliant feat, and then finds doors closing all around him. The breakdown of his marriage, his alcoholism, and the dramatic loss of sense of purpose are tragic.
His success ruined him.
His experience was also not unusual: other astronauts of that era had significant issues post-astronaut career. As did some of their wives.
IMO Collins did the right thing: after he came back with Apollo 11, he said he would never go to space again, and left the corp on his own terms.
But I have a big soft spot for cantankerous old Buzz.
The phenomenon of people in France wanting to cross to the UK is different though. These are almost uniquely people with relatives in the UK and/or only speaking English. My parents work with refugees at one of the reception centres in the Midlands. Their stories are fascinating, many arrived by boat, but they all have siblings or cousins here.
Any country that can't even host refugees tolerably is a failed state.
France also has oil.
The solution seems obvious. Conquer France, implement the Treaty of Troyes.
Incidentally, this would undo Brexit. With a bit of legal argy bargy. But hey....
Business Insider reports the outgoing Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht banned the military from making an inventory check ahead Ramstein to see how many Leopards are available.
It was done to protect Scholz from pressure.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1616823743350820864
https://caknowledge.com/billy-zane-net-worth/
Prince Harry as monarch.
If I had to leave the UK in a hurry, I'd head for Germany because I have contacts there and can speak German. I wouldn't want to settle in France or Belgium just because they happen to be between the UK and Germany, even if they were safe because I can't speak French and I don't know anybody there.
If we were still in the EU we'd be trading and earning more money as a country.
And that is with a Conservative government and before Starmer gets in and increases public spending and scraps the House of Lords!
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/refugees-by-country
UK has 223K, France has 542K, even Russia has 73K, but the bulk are as you'd expect in countries neighbouring the places people are fleeing from. Turkey has more than 3.5 million, making our grumbles about numbers look very small beer.
https://twitter.com/GresselGustav/status/1616723121238835200
TL:DR - to supply a lot of Leopards they need to start building new ones. But who is going to want to pay for new ones from an unreliable supplier?
The general election campaign has started with the parties submitting their lists of candidates and announcing their programs. The polls seem to show a polarization of views. Although the Liberal Reform party of PM Kaja Kallas is set to remain as the largest party in the 101 seat Riigikogu, the steady rise of the far right EKRE seems to place them firmly in second place, replacing the Social Liberal Centre Party, who seem set to lose several seats. In addition to the Conservative Isamaaliit and the Social Democrat SDE, there is a fair likelihood that a new party will join these in Parliament, namely the Business/Green minded Eesti 200. The Greens and the Libertarian "Right wingers" look like they will struggle to gain seats. A Moderate Reform/SDE/E200 coalition would be a good outcome, but the numbers will have to fall just so, otherwise there remains the chance of another Centre/Isamaa/EKRE coalition, which is unlikely to be either stable or effective. There remain suspicions about EKRE, as there are about any far right group in the EU.
The backdrop to the election is increasingly grim. There is a real sense of shock and anger that Germany has blocked any Leopards going to Ukraine, at a time when Estonia is donating over 1% of its entire GDP to Ukraine. Although the Baltic Assembly was diplomatic in expressing its disappointment, the truth is that the Balts feel increasingly exposed and deeply concerned about the prospects for a Russian counter attack.
The stunningly callous way that Russia has been murdering its own soldiers is not a surprise, but the revised CIA assessment of Russian casualties:of over 188,000 of which nearly 120,000 are dead, remains shocking. Unfortunately the meat grinder is also hitting Ukraine, and several thousand Ukrainian troops were killed in the last week as Russia consolidated its hold around Bakhmut. The need for military assistance to Ukraine is becoming an emergency, and German delays will be publicly condemned in very strong terms from here and elsewhere, if Leopards are not on the move soon.
In contrast British assistance in Estonia- Chinooks and more equipment, mostly, has arrived at the bases in Tapa and Amari and the cooperation between the UK and Estonia is increasing all the time.
Medvedev emerging from his Vodka bottle with more blood curdling nuclear threats can be discounted for the time being, but the longer this war continues, the more likely the use of nuclear weapons becomes. The depraved murderers in the Kremlin will stop at nothing, and they must be stopped. There is a growing sense that Germany may betray the Eastern flank, and that Russia has extended its subversive activities across the West.
A hard frost indeed as we wait out the dark winter days.
It's even worse now.
"Garrett is best known for the Lord Darcy books — the novel Too Many Magicians and two short story collections — set in an alternate world where a joint Anglo-French empire still led by a Plantagenet dynasty has survived into the twentieth century and where magic works and has been scientifically codified. The Darcy books are rich in jokes, puns, and references (particularly to works of detective and spy fiction: Lord Darcy is modeled on Sherlock Holmes), elements often appearing in the shorter works about the detective."
source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Garrett
I enjoyed both the stories, and his descriptions of that alternate world.