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Sunak’s hardline on the strikes could lead to his own destruction – politicalbetting.com
Sunak’s hardline on the strikes could lead to his own destruction – politicalbetting.com
One thing that we have learnt from political history is that if the government wants to take on a group of strikers then it must have the support of the public.
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The tories have not helped their cause by being morally bankrupt, sleaze-ridden, corrupt, tax dodgers ... spaffing billions of £££ on backhand PPE deals and stupid budgets.
They haven't a single leg to stand on and we all know it.
The longer this drags out, the worse it's going to get for the tory party.
Quite hard to put a positive spin on that, on a campaign poster
“Tory Britain: still better than a nuclear Holocaust. Probably”
They are going to get obliterated in 2024. It’s baked in the cake. They are staring at extinction
There’s also a feeling of ‘last straw’ or ‘not again’ after a decade of pay restraint due to austerity, now widely seen as done for nothing (given the debts racked up due to covid), and in the background growing awareness that whatever you think of Brexit, it isn’t heading us towards either higher wages or better services, and was another case of the old doing over the young.
What a fucking mess the Tories have made of EVERYTHING.
Dominic Raab has been formally criticised by a permanent secretary he worked with in evidence to the official inquiry into his behaviour.
As the deputy prime minister faces mounting questions about his future, he is understood to be facing claims of routinely humiliating civil servants across several government departments, with dozens of officials now having made formal allegations against him.
Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, said that he acted “swiftly and decisively” in sacking Nadhim Zahawi as the Conservative Party chairman on Sunday after an investigation found that he had repeatedly broken the ministerial code by failing to declare an investigation and tax penalty from HMRC.
However, as he battles to free himself from a series of ethics controversies, Sunak is now facing fresh questions about why he reappointed Raab to the Ministry of Justice despite documented complaints about him dating back to March. Downing Street insisted last night that the prime minister was not aware of any complaints about Raab when he made him his deputy in October.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/senior-civil-servant-gives-evidence-to-dominic-raab-bullying-inquiry-v3j8j795l
The ideal employee should be able to brag with the confidence of Muhammad Ali but the grace of Darcey Bussell, experts have suggested.
Psychologists and self-help book authors have said that British workers should “cut self-deprecation in half” and learn how to trumpet their successes if they wish to get ahead.
Meredith Fineman, author of Brag Better, said staff should find ways to communicate their brilliance.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brag-like-an-american-to-get-ahead-at-work-british-told-m53nrx356
An Oxford University student was caught stealing more than £2 million in a cryptocurrency scam after detectives discovered his pseudonym in his coursework.
Wybo Wiersma, 40, a PhD student, has been jailed for four and a half years after admitting to stealing £2,156,000 worth of the Iota cryptocurrency from 99 victims.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/oxford-student-jailed-for-2m-crypto-theft-after-phd-blunder-ftmdj9tmp
The nurses leaders have indicated several times they are willing to compromise and do a deal. I just cannot get, for the life of me, why the govt doesn’t do a deal with them.
The RMT has a new offer it is reviewing.
But I just don’t get the governments strategy on these strikes. It makes little sense.
The multinational IT firm co-founded by Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law is in dispute with HM Revenue & Customs over a multimillion-pound corporation tax bill.
Infosys, founded in 1981 by NR Narayana Murthy, said in its most recent accounts that it disagreed with HMRC about the amount of corporation tax it owes for a period from 2014 to 2017. The tax in question amounts to just under £20 million.
Murthy quit Infosys in 2014 and has clashed with the company’s subsequent leadership. Akshata Murty, his daughter and Sunak’s wife, still owns just over 0.9 per cent of the Bangalore-based company.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/firm-founded-by-rishi-sunaks-father-in-law-in-20m-tax-bill-dispute-8x7bqdwnh
https://twitter.com/williamshatner/status/1620065936538738695?s=61&t=y2i8tNlS0DesKgomnfoRGQ
I am glad BJO is moving away from them.
https://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/
He will be able to tell the Nats to go jump, he will be able to exterminate what remains of the corbynite left. But then what?
The siren call to rejoin the SM and CU will be powerful. He can blame it on the economic mess left by the Tories
But his window of opportunity to do this will be narrow. He probably needs to do it in the first 1-2 years of his first term. That’s when Blair should have gone for the euro, after that events build up and conspire against audacious politics
Will he do it? I’d say the chances are higher than
50%
Britain thinks it went through austerity following the Great Financial Crash, but things never got as bad as they did in Ireland, where the government was forced to implement actual cuts in nominal public sector pay, rather than use inflation to devalue them in real terms.
To be able to settle the public sector pay strikes, with an extra several % on pay deals, Sunak and Hunt will have to find another way to increase taxes, or cut spending, by many billions of pounds every year.
In the last budgetary statement they already took the step of extending fiscal drag for years after the next election. They're all out of stealthy ways to make the numbers add up.
Perhaps Britain's growth and tax receipts will beat forecasts, and the OBR forecasts in March will be revised to be more optimistic, providing fiscal space for a more generous public sector pay settlement - though the government will be desperate to use any fiscal wriggle room for pre-election tax cuts.
It's amazing how much commentary on the public sector pay strikes completely ignores Britain's poor economic and fiscal position. It's not purely a political question.
FWIW I think it's overly pessimistic - growth numbers have already been revised up for the most recent quarter and inflation is starting to come down.
I expect very high levels of disillusionment with SKS very quickly. But this won’t save the Tories who are going to be smashed.
Now if it is a hung parliament then I expect the Lib Dem condition for a coalition is rejoining the single market/EU.
I am therefore now backing a Labour majority.
One thing that we have learnt from political history is that politicians needs to be inquisitive and perceptive. The problem is that Tory politicians have quite simply lost their touch. Why this has occurred is up for debate, but there can be no doubt that a catastrophic collapse in social intelligence has occurred during the last decade.
My initial thoughts were that Obama comes across as uninterested, the EU as utterly shambolic, Cath Ashton as so far out of her depth as to be almost funny (her abiding recollection of going to Kyiv was the cold) and Putin as a total shit who lied about everything. The Poles and the Dutch came out with some credit.
After blaming everyone else for the pickle, I wonder when Tories will understand the stark truth: it is their own fault.
On the point of growth predictions: while it is true that we had the highest growth in the G7 in 21Q4 and 22Q1, that was from the worst pandemic decline in the G7, leaving us in a net negative position. Since then (for a number of reasons as you say) we have fallen back to the bottom (or near bottom) of real- and projected- GDP growth for 22Q4/23.
I am concerned that the business outlook is poor for the UK: for instance, we have only had the first wave of business closures from the energy price working its way through the system.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/
All that is why Prof Matthew Goodwin says that “Bregret is taking hold in Britain” with only one in five thinking it’s going well. Brexiters are now the minority, Bremoaning like hell because no amount of Brexit boosterism will bring back those lost supporters who know exactly whom to blame. Few will agree that their pet project has failed because it wasn’t “hard Brexit” enough. Eventually extreme Brexiters will subside back into their irrelevant coterie of cultists, unforgiven and moaning all the way.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/three-years-on-brexit-uk-voters-rejoining-eu-labour-europe
Given that the optimistic view for 2023 is zero, maybe an election isn't so daft?
The slowdown is gonna be stark.
The truth is there are no easy answers to sustainable decent growth anymore and lots of difficult choices, and European countries (those are the ones inside the EU by the way) have just as many problems as we do and, in some instances, worse political ones.
And without sinking to Farage style depths, too.
This is a difficult process that will not happen overnight and there will be some increase in unemployment but it is a necessary step to a proper recovery.
One of the main ones is Starmer himself. He is Remoaner-in-chief. He was the Brexit Shadow Minister under Corbyn who led the disgraceful campaign to ignore and reverse the original vote - this is why he is so keen NOT to talk about reversing Brexit now. But once he is safely in power he will be able to do what he likes, and he has a history of lying and doing a volte face, and the bigger his majority the more tempting it will be to go for major wins immediately
And the biggest win of all is SM/CU. That leaves the UK a relatively short step from actual Rejoin
He can't go for Rejoin itself because that needs another hideous divisive vote and no one wants a vote, it would destroy his premiership from the off. So his second best prize is the best prize available
And he will have many voices around him saying Do it now, we won't get another chance like this...
He will probably do it. Is my guess. But who knows
Once the boot is on the other foot the milk will quickly turn sour for them too.
He should have done his DPhil with Oxford’s History faculty. They don’t bother to read the theses they get.
As mentioned above, Ireland actually did austerity, where public salaries and benefit payments were actually cut in cash terms. Most of Western Europe now has the same problem though, public debt is high everywhere, and there’s little room for manoeuvre.
Unfortunately, so are the Labour Party:
https://twitter.com/saulstaniforth/status/1613089555103584256?s=46&t=fyJQFT6CXyPdzmX7vp-rdg
Never again. Think it'd have been more pleasant to be at Vimy Ridge.
Whilst nobody likes paying taxes, there's also a sense that trying to crush public sector workers so that the Chancellor can take 2p off the basic rate just isn't on.
And that's before we get to the simple practicality of supply and demand on current salary scales.
As for what the government should do... There isn't an obvious good answer, I think. Conceding to one group will mean conceding to all, and then Hunt's budget plans go up in smoke. But digging in is just going to annoy everyone and make a final compromise more painful. It's a bit late to take the lesson "don't pick a fight without a clear plan to win".
This government really is very inexperienced and with too much willingness to ignore realities it doesn't like. Hard not to think that has something to do with the post-2016 purges.
And from the start (the promise of a referendum) to the finish with Boris, Brexit was as much about winning domestic elections as it was anything else.
That's now operating in reverse.
That doesn't mean we can't have some fun by pointing a bit of the blame in Sean's direction....
Quite simply the red wall voted for prosperity. For respect. For being able to at least try and have some control over their community.
So the winning strategy for Labour is to say "Brexit failed, but we can deliver to you the gains you need". Rejoin won't be on the agenda, but below that it's all politically doable.
Remember that the "rule makers not rule takers" trope was propagated by the spivs who own the Tory party who intended to exploit red wall workers. Said workers hardly feel like they and their communities are in charge of anything, so "we'll be a vassal state!!!" doesn't have the same resonance it once had.
Net satisfaction
Rishi Sunak
England -26
Scotland -33
Keir Starmer
England -3
Scotland -13
Ed Davey
England -10
Scotland -20
Ipsos, 18-25 January
Shall we just check in on your native Sweden, see how things are going there? Let's just do Stockholm first?
Ah. I see. Oh dear. Well, never mind
"Here’s an updated list of notable attacks as part of the escalating gang conflicts in and around Stockholm. Since Dec. 25, at least:
- 11 shootings
- 5 shot dead
- 13 bombings
Excuse the google translate. ”Gate” = building entrance. ”Shelled” = shot at
https://aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/on7VeK/lista-daden-under-valdsspiralen-i-stockholm"
It's up to Biden whether he wants Sweden in that badly. If he does pay off Erdogan there will be a few other countries rattling the mendicant's bowl in one hand and their Article 10 veto in the other.
Meanwhile, experience is no guarantee of success...
@magnusllewellin: Trans row: ‘Sturgeon’s opponents are entitled to scream “We told you so”. Because they did and they were treated as… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1620308255716118528
The strikers will waver before the Govt does - Unions are leaking cash.
The IMF have no skin in UK politics or even pro / anti EU. They aren't politicised, not lobbying, not pushing a specific ideology other than money = good.
It laughable when people dismiss impartial economists - especially the big global ones - when they dislike the message.
After the figures today, the absolute state of the Tory party. 13 years and here we are - Rees Mogg telling me my insurance is cheaper as a benefit. Yeah, right
It is lack of preparation that is the problem, and I am yet to be convinced that Starmer has ant solutions at all for the nations ills.
Depending on the IMF accuracy it could be a 50% chance UK, 30% Germany, 20% Italy has the lowest growth. Or maybe their accuracy is quite good, and the probabilities are 85:10:5?
https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1620252864978239488
The resilience of the American economy is astounding:
- Financing rates at record highs.
- Monthly payments at record highs.
- New car prices at record highs.
- Used car prices slightly below record highs.
And… Car dealers are having a very strong month.
I can’t explain it