It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
It looks like the coincident timing of Brexit and the switch to EV production has been the killer. Manufacturers are dissuaded from the large investments needed by the UK's detachment from the Single Market. I suppose the government could have taken advantage of Brexit to pour in large amounts of state aid, but that would have taken some guts what with the general financial situation. Mass car production in the UK is in a very precarious state.
The rise of the Koreans (Hyundai and Kia) who have no manufacturing presence in the UK has been a factor too. It's been an impressive product led sales success in the UK for them once people realised BTS, Twice and everything Korean was cool.
Disgraceful bias on BBC Today: UK car production has fallen to its lowest level since 1956 and the BBC attributes this solely to shortage of semiconductors. Brexit not even mentioned.
It was also about item 10 in the running order.
The pro-Con bias is just preposterous.
That's insane. UK car production has underperformed so massively against our competitors (who all faced the same chips shortage) that there is clearly something UK-specific at work. It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Well exactly. It is the systematic stubborn refusal to even mention the word Brexit, and to present arguments for and against it being a factor, that irritates.
It is either plain journalistic incompetence or it is corruption. I suspect the latter is the principal factor.
I think it's more likely a misguided attempt at political neutrality - having spent several years somewhat biased against Brexit* - and the fact that most BBC reporters know far more about politics than they do about business.
There's no doubt that the BBC tends to lean towards whichever government is in power, and sometimes excessively so, but labelling it corruption is hyperbole.
*A position which seems justifiable given how it turned out, but was counterproductive at the time.
Sunak had to appoint Braverman to a key Cabinet post given it was her backing of him rather than Boris that helped ensure he faced no contest with the membership. Raab was a key Sunak supporter in both leadership elections and got his reward.
Italy has a more rightwing government than the UK now, Meloni is much more to GB news' flavour than Sunak
'Our government isn't as right wing as a bunch of actual fascists' doesn't quite do it for me as a statement.
It isn't especially right wing, not by normal UK standards. It is certainly not fascist.
It is a chumocracy, and incompetent, features which have developed over a long period and which are best remedied by a comprehensive clear-out.
Given how many of the 'chums' are in the civil service, one way or another, that's not going to be achieved solely by a change of government.
The Italy comparison is interesting. Of course, 30 years ago, Italy dominated club football. But those days seem a long time ago. I wonder how long the Premier League's supremacy will last and what will replace it?
I think Sunak is intelligent, industrious, level-headed, and a nice guy. However, he is not a man manager - possibly too "nice" to give hard messages - and personally gets involved in too much of the detail ( running his own models, personally reviewing the evidence etc) when he should really hold others to account for the same and select/build a good team.
He also thinks competent and measured administration is enough and doesn't give enough weight to the politics - lacking sharp political instincts and PR judgement - and is very risk averse, and his penchant for playing it safe means he could be overtaken by events.
He's miles better than Truss or Johnson, and is learning on the job, but the risk is he doesn't get credit for what he does get right and events will rapidly overtake him.
I'd still stick with him though. I've got no doubt he's working hard to fix things but it won't save the Tories.
I don't dislike Sunak, apart from his politics - as you say, he's clearly a big step up from Truss. But the point you mention about Ministers obsessively demanding to see everything seems endemic in the current Government - I know of three Departments where it's (according to people close to them) a major block to anything getting done. The pinnacle was Raab's example, demanding differently-formatted Excel sheets so he could srudy every Afghan refugee case during the fall of Kabul. Exceptions seem to be Cleverly and Wallace, both known for actually allowing progress without micromanaging every sheet of paper.
Cleverly is a snake oil salesman, he is sent out when they need someone who can tell huge whoppers and stammer and stutter to avoid telling the truth
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
It looks like the coincident timing of Brexit and the switch to EV production has been the killer. Manufacturers are dissuaded from the large investments needed by the UK's detachment from the Single Market. I suppose the government could have taken advantage of Brexit to pour in large amounts of state aid, but that would have taken some guts what with the general financial situation. Mass car production in the UK is in a very precarious state.
The rise of the Koreans (Hyundai and Kia) who have no manufacturing presence in the UK has been a factor too. It's been an impressive product led sales success in the UK for them once people realised BTS, Twice and everything Korean was cool.
The realisation that they were relatively cheap and very reliable predated BTS mania.
Queer Theory For Dummies, a Thread: A French guy called Michel Foucault liked having sex with kids. But Michel kinda knew that people (even in De Olden Dayz) knew that wasn't right. So he decided if he hid it in Lots Of Complicated Words, then he could make it okay.….
So Foucault wrote lots and lots of Complicated Words. He wrote a four-part History of Sexuality. Most of it was intended to break down all barriers regarding sex (and what we'd now call "safeguarding"). But because Michel was a French Intellectual, people called it "philosophy"…….
In a nutshell, Foucault argued that power structures police sexuality (duh) and stigmatize sexualities that are outside heteronormative behaviour. So far so fine, if we're talking about adults. But Foucault wanted to break ALL sexual barriers (wonder why, again, duh)..
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
German car production was 5.7 million vehicles in 2016. It was 3.3 million vehicles in 2021. I suppose that was due to Brexit as well?
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
“The result is the Home Office losing migrant children, children, in its care who we must suppose have been trafficked for purposes that don’t bear thinking about.”
I have a strong suspicion most (all?) of these “children” are Albanian lads who came here with the express intention of working in cannabis farms, or dealing drugs on county lines, and have absconded to do exactly that
If we had a more effective government they wouldn’t be here in the first place. That’s what we should be complaining about
So you are saying that these teenagers are being Trafficked? And therefore legitimate asylum seekers?
More like they are coming here for a job, just not official ones and hence why they come via dinghies pretending to be 14-16 when they are in fact hairy arsed adult criminals.
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
And Starmer happily served under Corbyn for 4 years amid the most appalling treatment of Jewish Labour MPs but that's ok apparently.
Assault? Harassment certainly. Intimidation, perhaps, though unlikely given that Hancock's a big bloke and the 61-year-old is 61. But assault?
"An assault is any act (and not mere omission to act) by which a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to suffer or apprehend immediate unlawful violence.
The term assault is often used to include a battery, which is committed by the intentional or reckless application of unlawful force to another person. Where there is a battery, the defendant should be charged with ‘assault by beating’: DPP v Little [1992] QB 645. Provided there has been an intentional or reckless application of unlawful force the offence will have been committed, however slight the force.."
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
And Starmer happily served under Corbyn for 4 years amid the most appalling treatment of Jewish Labour MPs but that's ok apparently.
Sunak tried that at PMQs. The more the Tories try to link Starmer to Corbyn, the more they highlight the obvious difference. Carry on.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
The destruction of Penny Mordaunt's campaign by the likes of David Frost and Anne-Marie Trevelyan was unforgiveable. The members should have been given a choice of her and Sunak. She would have been a risk - but did provide a chance for the Tories to be competitive. Sunak was the safe option but offered less on the upside. The leadership election process would have been an opportunity to see whether Mordaunt stood up.
Instead the rightwing ideologues managed to knock her out very narrowly and place a complete dud in the final who, as she told the members what they wanted to hear, elected her. Inevitably she blew up leaving Rishi a poisoned chalice. Much of this was entirely avoidable.
The echoes with 2001 are remarkable. Duncan Smith - another obvious dud backed by the right - won against two far better qualified alternatives, Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo. But at least the party was in opposition then and they had Michael Howard to clear up the mess and effect a modest recovery.
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
German car production was 5.7 million vehicles in 2016. It was 3.3 million vehicles in 2021. I suppose that was due to Brexit as well?
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
Yep. Bad for everyone, is Brexit. That's why we're all driving round in beaten up old Trabants Allegros.
I think Sunak is intelligent, industrious, level-headed, and a nice guy. However, he is not a man manager - possibly too "nice" to give hard messages - and personally gets involved in too much of the detail ( running his own models, personally reviewing the evidence etc) when he should really hold others to account for the same and select/build a good team.
He also thinks competent and measured administration is enough and doesn't give enough weight to the politics - lacking sharp political instincts and PR judgement - and is very risk averse, and his penchant for playing it safe means he could be overtaken by events.
He's miles better than Truss or Johnson, and is learning on the job, but the risk is he doesn't get credit for what he does get right and events will rapidly overtake him.
I'd still stick with him though. I've got no doubt he's working hard to fix things but it won't save the Tories.
I'd certainly stick with him, CR, if only because if the Tories change the nurse (again) for sure we'll finish up with something worse.
Your assessment of S is similar to mine. He won't win the next GE, but he might prevent a meltdown. I'd buy that if I were a Conservative supporter. (In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not.)
Might he? All the polling at the end of his honeymoon period suggests that electoral meltdown is on the cards still.
No it doesn't, the latest Deltapoll gives the Tories over 200 seats. Just unlike other pollsters it has RefUK under 5%
Fantasies of a Tory wipeout will remain just that (fantasies) unless a rival party on the right steals its bedrock.
Direct switching from Tory to Labour is relatively modest and, as @Sean_F says, centre-right voters haven't just disappeared or vanished into thin air.
There was a fair chunk of that in 1997, though. Fed up Conservative-minded voters deciding that they'd rather not bother voting.
Bet there was something similar on the red side in 2019.
I think the switching table likely overplays Con->Lab, Con->RefUK and underplays Con->LD and Con->DNV.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
A very good friend of mine died recently having just about spent his last penny. The timing was exquisite.
It would be difficult to equal his precsion, but it's well worth trying.
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
German car production was 5.7 million vehicles in 2016. It was 3.3 million vehicles in 2021. I suppose that was due to Brexit as well?
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
Those aren't the latest figures though. While UK car production in 2022 has dropped by another 10% since 2021, German car production, for example, has risen by 11%.
Covid and the associated semiconductor shortage hit everyone hard, but the others are slowly recovering while we still seem to be in a tailspin.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
I like those grim old Scots sayings. Another was a graveside funeral on a raw windy West Lothian day in a hilltop cemetery - "the kind of funeral where there'll be another one in a few weeks".
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
The destruction of Penny Mordaunt's campaign by the likes of David Frost and Anne-Marie Trevelyan was unforgiveable. The members should have been given a choice of her and Sunak. She would have been a risk - but did provide a chance for the Tories to be competitive. Sunak was the safe option but offered less on the upside. The leadership election process would have been an opportunity to see whether Mordaunt stood up.
Instead the rightwing ideologues managed to knock her out very narrowly and place a complete dud in the final who, as she told the members what they wanted to hear, elected her. Inevitably she blew up leaving Rishi a poisoned chalice. Much of this was entirely avoidable.
The echoes with 2001 are remarkable. Duncan Smith - another obvious dud backed by the right - won against two far better qualified alternatives, Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo. But at least the party was in opposition then and they had Michael Howard to clear up the mess and effect a modest recovery.
Had Portillo got to the final 2 not IDS he would also likely have beaten Clarke with members.
I doubt he would have done much better than Howard in 2005 ie modest progress but may have stayed on. As his agenda was closer to Cameron's anyway it may well have been Portillo who then beat Brown in 2010 to become PM, not Cameron.
So arguably Cameron became PM only due to IDS, no wonder he put IDS in his Cabinet!
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
“The result is the Home Office losing migrant children, children, in its care who we must suppose have been trafficked for purposes that don’t bear thinking about.”
I have a strong suspicion most (all?) of these “children” are Albanian lads who came here with the express intention of working in cannabis farms, or dealing drugs on county lines, and have absconded to do exactly that
If we had a more effective government they wouldn’t be here in the first place. That’s what we should be complaining about
There was a chap on the radio this morning who used to work for the NCA dealing with international orgranised crime, he thought the vast majority of those that going missing from hotels are trafficked by criminal gangs. He recommended returning them to Albania ASAP. In essence his argument was that from the gang's point of view letting them remain in the UK is the second best outcome to them slipping away as soon as they arrive. i.e. Housing them and assessing them for asylum is forming part of the trafficking pipeline. The gangs want them in the UK.
About half an hour later this was explained to Yvette Cooper who in her usual well-meaning liberal way didn't really want to engage with that point.
No government is likely to solve the problem because they would rather thousands of people are trafficked here than inadvertantly do harm to a legitimate asylum seeker. It's simply too unpleasant to face the reality and deal with in a hard-headed way.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
I absolutely agree that, and I do enjoy life. My dad's aim is to try to die with exactly £0 in the bank (*) - we all know we shouldn't rely on any inheritance (and no-one should).
But there's another side to that: not having enough money can be miserable, and circumstances change. Saving/investing a little money can really help you enjoy yourself in harsher times, such as the loss of a job or illness.
"Money can't buy you happiness, but it buys you a better form of miserable."
(*) Though that's actually really difficult to achieve if you don't know when you're going to die.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
The Italy comparison is interesting. Of course, 30 years ago, Italy dominated club football. But those days seem a long time ago. I wonder how long the Premier League's supremacy will last and what will replace it?
The most likely replacement for the Premier League, is probably the Saudi league that’s just signed Ronaldo.
As with the LIV Golf, the Saudis are willing to pour an awful lot of money into sport and tourism, in an attempt to drag their country into the 20th century, exploring sources of revenue that don’t involve oil.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
I like those grim old Scots sayings. Another was a graveside funeral on a raw windy West Lothian day in a hilltop cemetery - "the kind of funeral where there'll be another one in a few weeks".
My Father in Law, at a funeral a couple of weeks ago, was so impressed by it all that he got the funeral director's business card and has now bought his own plan from them.
(He's only mid 70s so hopefully has many more years left - he'd been to five funerals, I think, in the last couple of months, for older friends/former colleagues/neighbours and apparently this one stood out. Good opportunity to attract business, I guess, although one would have to be careful not to be seen to be fishing for it!)
The Italy comparison is interesting. Of course, 30 years ago, Italy dominated club football. But those days seem a long time ago. I wonder how long the Premier League's supremacy will last and what will replace it?
They cheated a lot in those days. Then it got too much even for the Italians and they had a clear-out.
They are still very good, of course, and a lot more honest now, but not the force of old.
I don't see widespread evidence of cheating in the Premiership, but as ever there is incompetence in abundance in the FA, so that may do in due course for the Premiership what cheating and corruption did for Serie A.
“The result is the Home Office losing migrant children, children, in its care who we must suppose have been trafficked for purposes that don’t bear thinking about.”
I have a strong suspicion most (all?) of these “children” are Albanian lads who came here with the express intention of working in cannabis farms, or dealing drugs on county lines, and have absconded to do exactly that
If we had a more effective government they wouldn’t be here in the first place. That’s what we should be complaining about
So you are saying that these teenagers are being Trafficked? And therefore legitimate asylum seekers?
If the government did anything remotely efficient and sensible to deter the boats, like instant deportation to Rwanda etc, you and @cyclefree and others of your pathetic ilk would be up in arms about THAT
It’s laughable. Then you moan about the decay of the nation
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
A very good friend of mine died recently having just about spent his last penny. The timing was exquisite.
It would be difficult to equal his precsion, but it's well worth trying.
Another friend of mine, who sadly seems to be in her last illness, was once told by her niece, 'you are spending all Uncle's money fast, aren't you?'
She shot back, 'yes, and then we're going to spend all mine.'
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
All it takes for the Tories to win is for a few Tories to hang on with small majorities. I can see it happening. I
Labour start a loooong way back. Winning in 2024 is like expecting them to win from their 1983 defeat.
Prepare yourself for five more years of this nonsense.
Hidden in the car production figures: at the top end of the market, Bentley and Rolls-Royce both saw record deliveries in 2022. Small volumes compared to the mass-market cars, but with a lot of skilled jobs behind them and not really affected by chip shortages. A lot of exports too, to all over the world.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
I like those grim old Scots sayings. Another was a graveside funeral on a raw windy West Lothian day in a hilltop cemetery - "the kind of funeral where there'll be another one in a few weeks".
My Father in Law, at a funeral a couple of weeks ago, was so impressed by it all that he got the funeral director's business card and has now bought his own plan from them.
(He's only mid 70s so hopefully has many more years left - he'd been to five funerals, I think, in the last couple of months, for older friends/former colleagues/neighbours and apparently this one stood out. Good opportunity to attract business, I guess, although one would have to be careful not to be seen to be fishing for it!)
My father was only in his mid-70s. The end can be quite sudden. Your father in law is obviously a man of shrewd judgement.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
The difference this time is that the rise of the SNP means there is a moderately large window where the Conservatives are soundly beaten but Labour don't have an impressive majority. Lab 340 Con 210 SNP 50 LD 30, say.
Even that requires quite a bit of a Conservative revival, though.
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
The Italy comparison is interesting. Of course, 30 years ago, Italy dominated club football. But those days seem a long time ago. I wonder how long the Premier League's supremacy will last and what will replace it?
A decade and a global franchised Super League seem about right.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
Indeed. 1964 - when a CON majority of around 100 disappeared and turned into a very small LAB majority - seems entirely plausible.
Then Keir could try to demonstrate that the LAB government is ok, and go for another election 1966 style after two years to secure a firmer mandate just like Wilson successfully did.
The CON wipeout predicted by many on here simply isn't going to happen!
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
I like those grim old Scots sayings. Another was a graveside funeral on a raw windy West Lothian day in a hilltop cemetery - "the kind of funeral where there'll be another one in a few weeks".
My Father in Law, at a funeral a couple of weeks ago, was so impressed by it all that he got the funeral director's business card and has now bought his own plan from them.
(He's only mid 70s so hopefully has many more years left - he'd been to five funerals, I think, in the last couple of months, for older friends/former colleagues/neighbours and apparently this one stood out. Good opportunity to attract business, I guess, although one would have to be careful not to be seen to be fishing for it!)
My father was only in his mid-70s. The end can be quite sudden. Your father in law is obviously a man of shrewd judgement.
Indeed. He could have gone aged 70 after a heart attack on a remote beach (Scottish Islands) which ended up with him on an emergency flight to Glasgow and he was in a very poor way until a stent got put in.
Maybe in part because of that, he's fairly switched on to this kind of thing, got power of attorney etc set up shortly after that.
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
German car production was 5.7 million vehicles in 2016. It was 3.3 million vehicles in 2021. I suppose that was due to Brexit as well?
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
Those aren't the latest figures though. While UK car production in 2022 has dropped by another 10% since 2021, German car production, for example, has risen by 11%.
Covid and the associated semiconductor shortage hit everyone hard, but the others are slowly recovering while we still seem to be in a tailspin.
And Europe is building new factories for EVs. We're not.
It might not be Brexit, but it almost certainly is.
Peak UK car production was in 2016...
Some people thought that Brexit might have a negative impact on the UK car industry, but the PB 'experts' assured us that was not the case.
German car production was 5.7 million vehicles in 2016. It was 3.3 million vehicles in 2021. I suppose that was due to Brexit as well?
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
Those aren't the latest figures though. While UK car production in 2022 has dropped by another 10% since 2021, German car production, for example, has risen by 11%.
Covid and the associated semiconductor shortage hit everyone hard, but the others are slowly recovering while we still seem to be in a tailspin.
Yes it's the recent performance (since the new trading regime was put in place) that are really alarming, the UK is trailing all of its competitors by a significant margin.
Hidden in the car production figures: at the top end of the market, Bentley and Rolls-Royce both saw record deliveries in 2022. Small volumes compared to the mass-market cars, but with a lot of skilled jobs behind them and not really affected by chip shortages. A lot of exports too, to all over the world.
Chips and the chip orders for them are going to the more expensive models.
Yes. If you can only get half the chips you need as a manufacturer, you’re going to put them on the more expensive cars with the highest margins.
This is why a lot of the more popular car models have been in such short supply, with long waiting lists and used cars selling for more than new ones, something that usually only happens to rare and expensive cars.
The used car market is now falling off a cliff in terms of price, as the supply problems are addressed and the waiting lists go away.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
Indeed. 1964 - when a CON majority of around 100 disappeared and turned into a very small LAB majority - seems entirely plausible.
Then Keir could try to demonstrate that the LAB government is ok, and go for another election 1966 style after two years to secure a firmer mandate just like Wilson successfully did.
The CON wipeout predicted by many on here simply isn't going to happen!
Alas yes. It would be good for everyone, especially the Tories, if they were heavily defeated. It would be bad if you can as poorly as this government and not be issued a major corrective by the electorate. But it’s perfectly plausible that they could cling on.
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
I don’t know how that gets turned around.
I think a lot of this is about party management and showing that he has peoples' backs. At the end of the day Raab and Braverman have survived as he kept his nerve. Not sure about Zahawi who is obviously circling the plughole at the moment. However the point is to try to prevent a narrative about the media forcing out minister after minister.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
I don’t know how that gets turned around.
I think a lot of this is about party management and showing that he has peoples' backs. At the end of the day Raab and Braverman have survived as he kept his nerve. Not sure about Zahawi who is obviously circling the plughole at the moment. However the point is to try to prevent a narrative about the media forcing out minister after minister.
Trading that for a narrative where you are so weak that you have no choice to defend the indefensible is hardly a plus.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
I don’t know how that gets turned around.
I think a lot of this is about party management and showing that he has peoples' backs. At the end of the day Raab and Braverman have survived as he kept his nerve. Not sure about Zahawi who is obviously circling the plughole at the moment. However the point is to try to prevent a narrative about the media forcing out minister after minister.
"No matter how crap you are, Rishi's got your back." That's the very opposite of good party management.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
Indeed. 1964 - when a CON majority of around 100 disappeared and turned into a very small LAB majority - seems entirely plausible.
Then Keir could try to demonstrate that the LAB government is ok, and go for another election 1966 style after two years to secure a firmer mandate just like Wilson successfully did.
The CON wipeout predicted by many on here simply isn't going to happen!
I think a wipeout will likely happen. The voters have made their collective minds up. The Truss fiasco was a tipping point. Even a recovering economy won't help as the Tories won't get the credit any more than they did in 1997.
Rishi's best chance is to stay measured and calm and look responsible. Then at least voting Tory won't look entirely disrespectable. The main danger is looking "weak" which is why he's refusing to sack people under pressure.
Hidden in the car production figures: at the top end of the market, Bentley and Rolls-Royce both saw record deliveries in 2022. Small volumes compared to the mass-market cars, but with a lot of skilled jobs behind them and not really affected by chip shortages. A lot of exports too, to all over the world.
Chips and the chip orders for them are going to the more expensive models.
The Bentley story is a bit misleading. Their stellar sales success is almost entirely due to the Bentayga. Body made in Zwickau, engines (apart from their 3 annual W12 sales) made in Zuffenhausen. All they do in Crewe is bolt them together and trim the hideous Brideshead Revisited interiors.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
It's a common sentiment. The German equivalent is: "Das letzte Hemd hat keine Taschen" (the last shirt has no pockets), as my late German mother-in-law used to say at regular intervals. She left a very modest estate.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
From a read of the article, I would guess the age of the defendant, an early guilty plea and lack of previous convictions might have mitigated the sentence? Others will have more insight.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
The best advice is to not leave it too late. If you want to do it (whatever it is) and you have the means, then do it.
As for those left behind, the best kindness is to do anything to make the admin easier. Get rid of your junk yourself and leave a will. The rest will look after itself.
Sunak had to appoint Braverman to a key Cabinet post given it was her backing of him rather than Boris that helped ensure he faced no contest with the membership. Raab was a key Sunak supporter in both leadership elections and got his reward.
Italy has a more rightwing government than the UK now, Meloni is much more to GB news' flavour than Sunak
'Our government isn't as right wing as a bunch of actual fascists' doesn't quite do it for me as a statement.
It isn't especially right wing, not by normal UK standards. It is certainly not fascist.
It is a chumocracy, and incompetent, features which have developed over a long period and which are best remedied by a comprehensive clear-out.
That is correct. It is not particularly right wing.
The policies that the Tory Govt is following are slightly right of centre economically, left of centre socially. (I appreciate that some very prominent Tory MPs are not, I am here talking about the actual policies that are implemented not the bluster).
The Tory Govt is actually not too far from where Blair’s New Labour ended up.
We don't yet know enough about Starmer's New Improved New Labour , but my guess he won't end up too far from this position either.
It is also a general rule that incompetent chumocracies develop over a long period in power.
It is as true for the UK Govt, as it is for the Welsh Govt.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Ah. He was 17 at the time of the offence. Legally a child, which is probably the reasoning behind the leniency.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Yep. Neither of the Waughs made old bones.
Bron's longstanding campaign in Private Eye against the late Lord Gowrie ("Britain's first black prime minister") always made me laugh. Apparently it dated back to competition over a girl in their youth.
Politico take on the tanks - manages to not mention Ukraine’s second largest backer by name…
But the tank debate also signaled the first significant and open break between Kyiv’s first- and third-largest backers. In recent weeks officials from Washington and Berlin had debated whether to agree to send tanks and whether to announce the decision in tandem. The public tussle raised questions among officials inside the Western alliance about the degree to which the coalition can remain solidified in its support for Ukraine in the coming months.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Those in favour of very high levels of inheritance tax don't seem to realise they're inadvertently promoting selfishness, because it makes sense to spend all your money while you're alive.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Ah. He was 17 at the time of the offence. Legally a child, which is probably the reasoning behind the leniency.
Still seems absurdly lenient. If you can legally have sex at 16 you can certainly commit horribly aggravated rape at 17
Rishi Sunak is discovering, very painfully, that you cannot lead a government or run a country by looking up from your spreadsheets every now and again.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
I don’t know how that gets turned around.
I think a lot of this is about party management and showing that he has peoples' backs. At the end of the day Raab and Braverman have survived as he kept his nerve. Not sure about Zahawi who is obviously circling the plughole at the moment. However the point is to try to prevent a narrative about the media forcing out minister after minister.
But by doing so he is making it more likely they will lose their seats at the next election. If he really had their backs he would be casting Zahawi out and trying to do something to mitigate the impending disaster for his party. Call it tough love if you like. He will get no thanks in the long term for having stuck by Zahawi and Braverman when the MPs are in turn turfed out by the electorate.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Yep. Neither of the Waughs made old bones.
Bron's longstanding campaign in Private Eye against the late Lord Gowrie ("Britain's first black prime minister") always made me laugh. Apparently it dated back to competition over a girl in their youth.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
Indeed. 1964 - when a CON majority of around 100 disappeared and turned into a very small LAB majority - seems entirely plausible.
Then Keir could try to demonstrate that the LAB government is ok, and go for another election 1966 style after two years to secure a firmer mandate just like Wilson successfully did.
The CON wipeout predicted by many on here simply isn't going to happen!
I think a wipeout will likely happen. The voters have made their collective minds up. The Truss fiasco was a tipping point. Even a recovering economy won't help as the Tories won't get the credit any more than they did in 1997.
Rishi's best chance is to stay measured and calm and look responsible. Then at least voting Tory won't look entirely disrespectable. The main danger is looking "weak" which is why he's refusing to sack people under pressure.
According to that wiki graph, there is an apparent trend of steadily declining Conservative support from about 35% in March 2022 to 26% now. Within that, there was a temporary additional collapse during the Truss chaos which Sunak reversed. But it's not obvious that he has yet halted the underlying trend of a 1% fall per month. 2023 is going to be very hard on peoples' pockets, again.
The state of politics now seems very akin to the wave of scandals that beset the later Major years. Tories mired in sleaze and enriching themselves by dubious means. There's a consistency of narrative there. The only difference with Major is the scale of the sleaze and the fact that it goes all the way up to the heart of the cabinet, including the ringleader himself.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Those in favour of very high levels of inheritance tax don't seem to realise they're inadvertently promoting selfishness, because it makes sense to spend all your money while you're alive.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Those in favour of very high levels of inheritance tax don't seem to realise they're inadvertently promoting selfishness, because it makes sense to spend all your money while you're alive.
Unless they are promoting generosity because it makes sense to give away all your money while you're alive although if it is mainly given to relatives, that swings back to selfishness. It's complicated.
One odd thing in the latest corruption link between Johnson and his chum at the BBC. Why did he need an introduction to his own distant relative?
£800 000 is a lot of money, even to a spendthrift like Johnson. What was the money for?
Divorce!
He’s always been rubbish with money, but was lucky that his wife earned a fortune and he made good money for little work with his Telegraph column.
Then he got divorced, and had to live with his new family on a government salary - the new wife having a part time charity job, and high expectations of lifestyle.
Boris is said to own two or three houses, and the papers recently had him sniffing around another pile in Tunbridge Wells. Is he really skint or just careful to the point of miserly?
My dad - always careful with money - taught me a saying: "Expenditure swells to fill any possible income".
In other words, when you're young and not earning much, you go out and have a good time. When you start earning more, you spend more. You buy slightly better things; you buy more of them. Instead of that cheap bottle of £7 plonk, you get a £15 one. Instead of a cheap smartphone, you get the latest Apple whatever.
He then said the key is to break that cycle: don't be miserly, but ensure your expenditure does not fill your income. In the case of a relative, he tries to save/invest 15% of his take home income - even if they was really hard when he was starting out.
I fear Boris is someone who has never learnt that. As soon as he earns something, even if it is a lot, it will disappear.
Enjoy yourself , the old adage that there are no pockets on a shroud are very real. You never know the day and all that lolly left for relatives to squander coudl have been enjoyed by yourself.
LOL. Great adage - never heard it before. I will tell my missus who is obsessed with leaving stuff for the kids.
The best advice is: spend all your money, leave them the property
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Ah. He was 17 at the time of the offence. Legally a child, which is probably the reasoning behind the leniency.
There’s a whole range of factors that could be in play - including the guilty plea:
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Ah. He was 17 at the time of the offence. Legally a child, which is probably the reasoning behind the leniency.
Still seems absurdly lenient. If you can legally have sex at 16 you can certainly commit horribly aggravated rape at 17
He should have got 8-10 minimum
Was he charged and sentenced separately for the assault (and battery) which left the rape victim's male companion unconscious?
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
You could level the same criticism at Starmer/Corbyn. Both were relatively new to politics and working under a deficient leader seems to be part of the learning process. If anything we could thank Sunak for helping rid us of the poisonous Johnson. They both deserve a clean slate. If I was a neutral my preference would be for Starmer because I'm just sick of Tories privilege and old school ties
Sunak had to appoint Braverman to a key Cabinet post given it was her backing of him rather than Boris that helped ensure he faced no contest with the membership. Raab was a key Sunak supporter in both leadership elections and got his reward.
Italy has a more rightwing government than the UK now, Meloni is much more to GB news' flavour than Sunak
'Our government isn't as right wing as a bunch of actual fascists' doesn't quite do it for me as a statement.
It isn't especially right wing, not by normal UK standards. It is certainly not fascist.
It is a chumocracy, and incompetent, features which have developed over a long period and which are best remedied by a comprehensive clear-out.
That is correct. It is not particularly right wing.
The policies that the Tory Govt is following are slightly right of centre economically, left of centre socially. (I appreciate that some very prominent Tory MPs are not, I am here talking about the actual policies that are implemented not the bluster).
The Tory Govt is actually not too far from where Blair’s New Labour ended up.
We don't yet know enough about Starmer's New Improved New Labour , but my guess he won't end up too far from this position either.
It is also a general rule that incompetent chumocracies develop over a long period in power.
It is as true for the UK Govt, as it is for the Welsh Govt.
The Telegraph opinion writers' view is basically that the country is in such a complete mess that that could only have been brought about by 13 years of governments following closet socialist policies, regardless of the label on the tin.
Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
Sunak had to appoint Braverman to a key Cabinet post given it was her backing of him rather than Boris that helped ensure he faced no contest with the membership. Raab was a key Sunak supporter in both leadership elections and got his reward.
Italy has a more rightwing government than the UK now, Meloni is much more to GB news' flavour than Sunak
'Our government isn't as right wing as a bunch of actual fascists' doesn't quite do it for me as a statement.
It isn't especially right wing, not by normal UK standards. It is certainly not fascist.
It is a chumocracy, and incompetent, features which have developed over a long period and which are best remedied by a comprehensive clear-out.
That is correct. It is not particularly right wing.
The policies that the Tory Govt is following are slightly right of centre economically, left of centre socially. (I appreciate that some very prominent Tory MPs are not, I am here talking about the actual policies that are implemented not the bluster).
The Tory Govt is actually not too far from where Blair’s New Labour ended up.
We don't yet know enough about Starmer's New Improved New Labour , but my guess he won't end up too far from this position either.
It is also a general rule that incompetent chumocracies develop over a long period in power.
It is as true for the UK Govt, as it is for the Welsh Govt.
The Telegraph opinion writers' view is basically that the country is in such a complete mess that that could only have been brought about by 13 years of governments following closet socialist policies, regardless of the label on the tin.
The Telegraph opinion writers' view that "the country is in such a complete mess that it could only have been brought about by 13 years of Socialist policies" has been unchanged for nearly a century.
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
That sounds horribly lenient on the face of it. Rape can carry a life sentence, and this particular aggravated case looks like it should be towards the top of the scale. He’ll be out in his mid-20s, unlikely to have either learned his lesson or had his life impacted to the same extent as his victims.
He’s 19 so he’ll be out aged 22. Ridiculous
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Ah. He was 17 at the time of the offence. Legally a child, which is probably the reasoning behind the leniency.
Still seems absurdly lenient. If you can legally have sex at 16 you can certainly commit horribly aggravated rape at 17
He should have got 8-10 minimum
Was he charged and sentenced separately for the assault (and battery) which left the rape victim's male companion unconscious?
As ever, it would really help if we had access to the judge’s sentencing remarks, which will explain how the rules have been applied to reach the final sentence.
It’s possible they haven’t been made available online yet, so we’re left trying to read the runes from the partial reporting in the tabloids.
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
And Starmer happily served under Corbyn for 4 years amid the most appalling treatment of Jewish Labour MPs but that's ok apparently.
Sunak tried that at PMQs. The more the Tories try to link Starmer to Corbyn, the more they highlight the obvious difference. Carry on.
Just caught up with yesterday's PMQs, and there's something I don't get about the Sunak/Zahawi narrative. Last week Sunak declared the matter closed, as he'd had a full account of Zahawi's tax affairs, and was satisfied. This week, Sunak said because new information had come to light, there were questions to answer and it was therefore being referred to the ethics advisor. So, a week ago Sunak didn't have the full story (especially about the 'careless' penalty), because Zahawi hadn't told him. This week he has.
So surely, Sunak should have sacked Zahawi for dumping him in this position by not telling his boss the full and whole truth? He has ample grounds for removing him regardless of the tax avoidance/evasion.
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
You could level the same criticism at Starmer/Corbyn. Both were relatively new to politics and working under a deficient leader seems to be part of the learning process. If anything we could thank Sunak for helping rid us of the poisonous Johnson. They both deserve a clean slate. If I was a neutral my preference would be for Starmer because I'm just sick of Tories privilege and old school ties
Well quite. What we saw at PMQs was Sunak trying to spin some BS about a principled resignation. He took his time and moved when he thought he could win. Fair enough, but please spare us the 'principled' BS.
Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
This prediction is a bit ghoulish but I think it's sound: no British politician will go anywhere near re-join until Nigel Farage is senile or dead.
“The result is the Home Office losing migrant children, children, in its care who we must suppose have been trafficked for purposes that don’t bear thinking about.”
I have a strong suspicion most (all?) of these “children” are Albanian lads who came here with the express intention of working in cannabis farms, or dealing drugs on county lines, and have absconded to do exactly that
If we had a more effective government they wouldn’t be here in the first place. That’s what we should be complaining about
Jonathan Gullis made this point at PMQ's and outraged twitter. There are no prizes to be gained for making such a point.
Which comes back to a theme I think gets missed - secondary effects of policies.
Back in the day, children in care were virtually imprisoned. Human rights (and human decency - these places were wretched and full of abuse) came into the picture, and the grim prisons were got rid of.
Now, the staff have no power to detain. As Winston Smith, the blogger who worked in the field, described - they have no power to stop a child walking out the door. If they physically stop them, the staff could be charged with assault. He described how they would have to watch as children walked out to waiting taxis…
I’m quite sure that the child migrants in question weren’t dragged off from the hotels/detention sites. What happened was almost certainly the above. They left, initially, of their own accord.
The answer is not to bring back borstal. But to recognise that when the total control over children in care was removed, that this created a gap. How to replace that?
Sunak is less bad than Boris and less crazy than Truss. However both had more political skill than Sunak. His public school veneer is less deep than Cameron’s. His charm is pretty superficial.
Sunak is a technocrat who has spent his life focussed on money. There is no depth. Some people go for that, but I don’t. There is no direction or judgement, just management. He’s not hugely good at that it seems.
Despite his belated conversation, he was also perfectly happy to serve Boris.
You could level the same criticism at Starmer/Corbyn. Both were relatively new to politics and working under a deficient leader seems to be part of the learning process. If anything we could thank Sunak for helping rid us of the poisonous Johnson. They both deserve a clean slate. If I was a neutral my preference would be for Starmer because I'm just sick of Tories privilege and old school ties
Well quite. What we saw at PMQs was Sunak trying to spin some BS about a principled resignation. He took his time and moved when he thought he could win. Fair enough, but please spare us the 'principled' BS.
Given that NF is fueled entirely by Silk Cut, Heineken and spite we might not have to wait much longer. 🙏
Stay safe, everyone, and remember our readers in Moscow and Tehran.
Russian and Iranian hackers, you say?
Must be a “y” in the name of the day.
Excellent header by @Cyclefree - the question is how to re-impose standards.
How to reimpose standards: 1) Make clear what the standards are, and make them widely known. 2) When people are accused of breaking the standards, have a fair investigation and a clear punishment if they are found to have been broken. 3) Stop criticising behaviour that are not in the standards. 4) Regularly review and update the standards.
3) is IMO an important one: politicians get criticised for everything nowadays, and I'm unsure that help. If we get headlines over the price of a flight the PM or LOTO takes, then the important stuff - the real rulebreakers - get hidden.
Good point.
It was only last week, that the PM travelling by government plane and government car - described respectively by commentators as “private jet” and “chauffeur-driven limousine” - was news.
It was the same with the trade delegation that went to Australia in the middle of the pandemic restrictions, taking a govt plane rather than a commercial flight - at a time when commercial long-haul flights were all over the place.
Cabinet ministers’ official movements are co-ordinated primarily by the police, for security reasons.
Trying to get the media and Opposition to concentrate on what’s actually important, rather than using hyperbolic language to describe trivialities, or trying to keep a story in the news while the investigation process is underway, is sadly going to be an uphill task.
Valiant try Sandpit but that turd cannot be polished.
Actually some guys at MIT proved that wrong. Freeze the turd in liquid nitrogen then polish on successive grades of grinding wheel. IIRC they got to a pretty fine surface in the end.
Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
This prediction is a bit ghoulish but I think it's sound: no British politician will go anywhere near re-join until Nigel Farage is senile or dead.
First time I’m heard that theory, but I think you have a point. Farage personified Brexit - more than Johnson or Gove or Cummings or anyone else - and he continues to haunt both parties’ fever dreams. He represents an era.
Stay safe, everyone, and remember our readers in Moscow and Tehran.
Russian and Iranian hackers, you say?
Must be a “y” in the name of the day.
Excellent header by @Cyclefree - the question is how to re-impose standards.
How to reimpose standards: 1) Make clear what the standards are, and make them widely known. 2) When people are accused of breaking the standards, have a fair investigation and a clear punishment if they are found to have been broken. 3) Stop criticising behaviour that are not in the standards. 4) Regularly review and update the standards.
3) is IMO an important one: politicians get criticised for everything nowadays, and I'm unsure that help. If we get headlines over the price of a flight the PM or LOTO takes, then the important stuff - the real rulebreakers - get hidden.
Good point.
It was only last week, that the PM travelling by government plane and government car - described respectively by commentators as “private jet” and “chauffeur-driven limousine” - was news.
It was the same with the trade delegation that went to Australia in the middle of the pandemic restrictions, taking a govt plane rather than a commercial flight - at a time when commercial long-haul flights were all over the place.
Cabinet ministers’ official movements are co-ordinated primarily by the police, for security reasons.
Trying to get the media and Opposition to concentrate on what’s actually important, rather than using hyperbolic language to describe trivialities, or trying to keep a story in the news while the investigation process is underway, is sadly going to be an uphill task.
Valiant try Sandpit but that turd cannot be polished.
Actually some guys at MIT proved that wrong. Freeze the turd in liquid nitrogen then polish on successive grades of grinding wheel. IIRC they got to a pretty fine surface in the end.
Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
There's no 'necessarily' to it's actually working, though.
I don't think rejoin/not rejoin is going to be determined like that anyway. Closer links with Europe which benefit trade might mean we're comfortable staying outside of the EU for quite some time, for example - but they would also make rejoining a less complicated process.
And conversely, the application of an economically distressed UK, trying to rejoin to bolster its economy, might be rejected.
The Tories certainly deserve to lose half their seats based on their poor performance. FPTP and the dark arts of the Tory right (the sort of smear campaign that destroyed Penny Mordaunt ) will limit the losses. The next election could be more 2010 or1992 than 1997.
I make a 1964 or October 1974 result the favourite currently. The best realistic scenario for Labour is 1966. I just cannot see a landslide or a Tory victory currently. But who can?
All it takes for the Tories to win is for a few Tories to hang on with small majorities. I can see it happening. I
Labour start a loooong way back. Winning in 2024 is like expecting them to win from their 1983 defeat.
Prepare yourself for five more years of this nonsense.
I certainly believe that the most likely result, 1992 all over again, and with Johnson back in the saddle, a racing certainty.
Rather than direct cash, the government should offer a subsidy for actually delivering batteries at scale. X per GWh, with X scaled to U.K. content/added value. To any potential manufacturer.
Absolutely. The last lot of management at BritishVolt, gave the impression that their primary business was chasing a subsidy cheque, much more than trying to actually open the factory and produce any batteries. Government incentives need to be tied to actual production.
They do need customers though. British car production reached a 66 year low last year:
I would have hoped that there was enough demand for energy storage from households, businesses and the grid to soak up any production that is not used by cars, and once the production of batteries is here it will be easier to convince someone to build electric cars here as they will know they won't have to import the batteries.
It's still an investment of billions, which will take well over a decade to pay off. Commercial companies won't invest in any such unproven ventures - and the proven manufacturers, Chinese, S Korean, American etc haven't shown any interest.
Without a significant nudge from government, it might stay that way.
Without Brexit, it would likely already be built, and selling everything it could make.
I'd like to see the government provide a nudge to help plants get built, but that avoids the directors walking away with lots of money without a battery being produced.
Wouldn't be a terrible idea for the government to sign up as the purchaser of the first several GWh of production.
X subsidy per GWh of production with a minimum of Y GWh of production. X is a function of the U.K. content of the batteries - zero for rebadging imports, 100% for 100% U.K. content (impossible of course).
The best bit is that the government would be spending money a decade from now - Someone Else’s Budget….
Just caught up with yesterday's PMQs, and there's something I don't get about the Sunak/Zahawi narrative. Last week Sunak declared the matter closed, as he'd had a full account of Zahawi's tax affairs, and was satisfied. This week, Sunak said because new information had come to light, there were questions to answer and it was therefore being referred to the ethics advisor. So, a week ago Sunak didn't have the full story (especially about the 'careless' penalty), because Zahawi hadn't told him. This week he has.
So surely, Sunak should have sacked Zahawi for dumping him in this position by not telling his boss the full and whole truth? He has ample grounds for removing him regardless of the tax avoidance/evasion.
Well, presumably, the explanation is that Sunak does not know whether the new information is true or not. It is most likely an allegation that is disputed.
I would expect Z to have an accountant or tax advisor that files his returns.
So, this 'carelessness' may be the result of his advisor.
(As, for example, the film director Pedro Almodovar argued after his financial affaires were leaked in the Panama Papers scandal).
I personally have no problem with an investigation into Z by the ethics advisor provided it is (i) very speedy and (ii) the report & evidence is made public.
Just as the EU was blamed for most things before Brexit the reverse is now happening .
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
This blame-Brexit campaign is possibly going to succeed as well
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
The tyranny of the smartphone continues. The water board plans to change my water meter to a smart meter, and there is a mobile app to monitor and "to take control over your water usage" which is apparently not just a matter of turning taps on and off.
Clinton lying hardly makes him unique amongst US politicians. I don’t think this thesis stands up to much scrutiny.
He did it with a certain brazen style that was different. He was clearly proud of his lies. He seemed to use the “I am a sinner. Therefore I must be forgiven” thing we talked about, the other day.
Comments
There's no doubt that the BBC tends to lean towards whichever government is in power, and sometimes excessively so, but labelling it corruption is hyperbole.
*A position which seems justifiable given how it turned out, but was counterproductive at the time.
......slightly spoiled in the penultimate paragraph by a rather crass audience pleaser
A French guy called Michel Foucault liked having sex with kids. But Michel kinda knew that people (even in De Olden Dayz) knew that wasn't right. So he decided if he hid it in Lots Of Complicated Words, then he could make it okay.….
So Foucault wrote lots and lots of Complicated Words. He wrote a four-part History of Sexuality. Most of it was intended to break down all barriers regarding sex (and what we'd now call "safeguarding"). But because Michel was a French Intellectual, people called it "philosophy"…….
In a nutshell, Foucault argued that power structures police sexuality (duh) and stigmatize sexualities that are outside heteronormative behaviour. So far so fine, if we're talking about adults. But Foucault wanted to break ALL sexual barriers (wonder why, again, duh)..
https://twitter.com/jamesbarry1789/status/1618382393039257602
French car production was 2.1 million vehicles in 2016. It was 1.3 million vehicles in 2021. Indeed just like the UK their car production is now down to the numbers seen in the 1950s. Brexit?
The term assault is often used to include a battery, which is committed by the intentional or reckless application of unlawful force to another person. Where there is a battery, the defendant should be charged with ‘assault by beating’: DPP v Little [1992] QB 645. Provided there has been an intentional or reckless application of unlawful force the offence will have been committed, however slight the force.."
Instead the rightwing ideologues managed to knock her out very narrowly and place a complete dud in the final who, as she told the members what they wanted to hear, elected her. Inevitably she blew up leaving Rishi a poisoned chalice. Much of this was entirely avoidable.
The echoes with 2001 are remarkable. Duncan Smith - another obvious dud backed by the right - won against two far better qualified alternatives, Ken Clarke and Michael Portillo. But at least the party was in opposition then and they had Michael Howard to clear up the mess and effect a modest recovery.
However very good from @Cyclefree as ever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_the_European_Parliament
https://images.app.goo.gl/xujaeDjf3bDftZYh9
It would be difficult to equal his precsion, but it's well worth trying.
Covid and the associated semiconductor shortage hit everyone hard, but the others are slowly recovering while we still seem to be in a tailspin.
The basic problem is that he is a natural second-in-command with very little political experience. And, yes, he is weak: he knows the majority of his party membership did not vote for him and a large number of Tory MPs do not want him. You don’t put people like Braverman, Zahawi, Raab and Williamson in your government if you are strong.
I don’t know how that gets turned around.
I doubt he would have done much better than Howard in 2005 ie modest progress but may have stayed on. As his agenda was closer to Cameron's anyway it may well have been Portillo who then beat Brown in 2010 to become PM, not
Cameron.
So arguably Cameron became PM only due to IDS, no wonder he put IDS in his Cabinet!
About half an hour later this was explained to Yvette Cooper who in her usual well-meaning liberal way didn't really want to engage with that point.
No government is likely to solve the problem because they would rather thousands of people are trafficked here than inadvertantly do harm to a legitimate asylum seeker. It's simply too unpleasant to face the reality and deal with in a hard-headed way.
But there's another side to that: not having enough money can be miserable, and circumstances change. Saving/investing a little money can really help you enjoy yourself in harsher times, such as the loss of a job or illness.
"Money can't buy you happiness, but it buys you a better form of miserable."
(*) Though that's actually really difficult to achieve if you don't know when you're going to die.
As with the LIV Golf, the Saudis are willing to pour an awful lot of money into sport and tourism, in an attempt to drag their country into the 20th century, exploring sources of revenue that don’t involve oil.
(He's only mid 70s so hopefully has many more years left - he'd been to five funerals, I think, in the last couple of months, for older friends/former colleagues/neighbours and apparently this one stood out. Good opportunity to attract business, I guess, although one would have to be careful not to be seen to be fishing for it!)
They are still very good, of course, and a lot more honest now, but not the force of old.
I don't see widespread evidence of cheating in the Premiership, but as ever there is incompetence in abundance in the FA, so that may do in due course for the Premiership what cheating and corruption did for Serie A.
It’s laughable. Then you moan about the decay of the nation
She shot back, 'yes, and then we're going to spend all mine.'
Labour start a loooong way back. Winning in 2024 is like expecting them to win from their 1983 defeat.
Prepare yourself for five more years of this nonsense.
“Astonishing that this violent rapist will serve between three and five years for this evil crime. He should never walk free again.”
https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1618286039080275968?s=46&t=TU6ASm1AfSPyr3LS2kmJ0Q
Can any of PB’s legal seagulls explain this lenient sentencing? Am i missing something? I thought aggravated rapes got 10 years plus automatically
And this one is especially vile
Even that requires quite a bit of a Conservative revival, though.
He either sacks some people, or they sack him
Then Keir could try to demonstrate that the LAB government is ok, and go for another election 1966 style after two years to secure a firmer mandate just like Wilson successfully did.
The CON wipeout predicted by many on here simply isn't going to happen!
Maybe in part because of that, he's fairly switched on to this kind of thing, got power of attorney etc set up shortly after that.
We're not.
This is why a lot of the more popular car models have been in such short supply, with long waiting lists and used cars selling for more than new ones, something that usually only happens to rare and expensive cars.
The used car market is now falling off a cliff in terms of price, as the supply problems are addressed and the waiting lists go away.
Second best advice: die on the toilet of a heart attack aged 76
Auberon Waugh personally told me that second bit of advice and, oddly enough, it’s not unlike how he died (likewise his own father)
That's the very opposite of good party management.
Unless the news report misses something (quite possible) then this is outrageously lenient, and one presumes the CPS will appeal for a higher sentence. Rightly so
Rishi's best chance is to stay measured and calm and look responsible. Then at least voting Tory won't look entirely disrespectable. The main danger is looking "weak" which is why he's refusing to sack people under pressure.
As for those left behind, the best kindness is to do anything to make the admin easier. Get rid of your junk yourself and leave a will. The rest will look after itself.
The policies that the Tory Govt is following are slightly right of centre economically, left of centre socially. (I appreciate that some very prominent Tory MPs are not, I am here talking about the actual policies that are implemented not the bluster).
The Tory Govt is actually not too far from where Blair’s New Labour ended up.
We don't yet know enough about Starmer's New Improved New Labour , but my guess he won't end up too far from this position either.
It is also a general rule that incompetent chumocracies develop over a long period in power.
It is as true for the UK Govt, as it is for the Welsh Govt.
Bron's longstanding campaign in Private Eye against the late Lord Gowrie ("Britain's first black prime minister") always made me laugh. Apparently it dated back to competition over a girl in their youth.
But the tank debate also signaled the first significant and open break between Kyiv’s first- and third-largest backers. In recent weeks officials from Washington and Berlin had debated whether to agree to send tanks and whether to announce the decision in tandem. The public tussle raised questions among officials inside the Western alliance about the degree to which the coalition can remain solidified in its support for Ukraine in the coming months.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/25/inside-washingtons-about-face-on-sending-tanks-to-ukraine-00079560
He should have got 8-10 minimum
The state of politics now seems very akin to the wave of scandals that beset the later Major years. Tories mired in sleaze and enriching themselves by dubious means. There's a consistency of narrative there. The only difference with Major is the scale of the sleaze and the fact that it goes all the way up to the heart of the cabinet, including the ringleader himself.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/rape/
I can imagine it’s frustrating for Leavers but what goes around comes around !
I used to scoff at predictions we would Rejoin. Now I am not so sure at all. Tho the Rejoiners need to act fairly fast - next 5-10 years - because the UK will in time pivot further away from the EU, as it necessarily develops a new economic model that actually works
It’s possible they haven’t been made available online yet, so we’re left trying to read the runes from the partial reporting in the tabloids.
So surely, Sunak should have sacked Zahawi for dumping him in this position by not telling his boss the full and whole truth? He has ample grounds for removing him regardless of the tax avoidance/evasion.
His lies bred a lasting political cynicism
By Giles Fraser"
https://unherd.com/2023/01/how-bill-clinton-created-post-truth-america/
Back in the day, children in care were virtually imprisoned. Human rights (and human decency - these places were wretched and full of abuse) came into the picture, and the grim prisons were got rid of.
Now, the staff have no power to detain. As Winston Smith, the blogger who worked in the field, described - they have no power to stop a child walking out the door. If they physically stop them, the staff could be charged with assault. He described how they would have to watch as children walked out to waiting taxis…
I’m quite sure that the child migrants in question weren’t dragged off from the hotels/detention sites. What happened was almost certainly the above. They left, initially, of their own accord.
The answer is not to bring back borstal. But to recognise that when the total control over children in care was removed, that this created a gap. How to replace that?
I’m reading Simon Sebag Montefiore’s THE WORLD
I am only on page 40 but so far it is compulsively good. If the next 1093 pages are of the same quality: wow
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI
I don't think rejoin/not rejoin is going to be determined like that anyway.
Closer links with Europe which benefit trade might mean we're comfortable staying outside of the EU for quite some time, for example - but they would also make rejoining a less complicated process.
And conversely, the application of an economically distressed UK, trying to rejoin to bolster its economy, might be rejected.
The best bit is that the government would be spending money a decade from now - Someone Else’s Budget….
Mr. Leon, only read Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: the Red Tsar, but I enjoyed it a lot. Presumably The World is a global history?
I would expect Z to have an accountant or tax advisor that files his returns.
So, this 'carelessness' may be the result of his advisor.
(As, for example, the film director Pedro Almodovar argued after his financial affaires were leaked in the Panama Papers scandal).
I personally have no problem with an investigation into Z by the ethics advisor provided it is (i) very speedy and (ii) the report & evidence is made public.
As shown on TV last night
If you enjoyed Stalin the Red Tsar you MUST read his Young Stalin. It’s even better. Gloriously entertaining and informative
I quite liked his biography of Jerusalem the city but it’s not in the same league at all
He’s really good on personal human anecdote - and weaving that in to a wider narrative like an accomplished novelist
Christopher Hitchens devoted an entire book to the Clintons' duplicity - "No-one Left to Lie to".
The Clintons were one of his pet hates, along with Kissinger, Mother Theresa and Benedict XVI.