There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Arguing with the ref is of course understandable but not a good look.
Even the CotE didn't dispute them but said that people often exceed such forecasts.
Everyone I have spoken to without fail regardless of party thinks the nurses have a point. So therefore Sunak is an idiot
Have you considered the possibility that your social circle is not correctly weighed to be representative of the wider electorate?
You mean, like the time you said Sweden would never join NATO as nobody wanted it?
Erdogan still doesn't.
Erdogan has said what he wants to let Sweden in: 40 x F-16 Block 70 plus 100 Block 70 upgrades and a refund on the $1.4bn (he's got receipts) that Türkiye tipped into the F-35. He'd probably also settle for being readmitted to F-35.
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.
Am surprised we had 4.1% growth in 2022. Given that the optimistic view for 2023 is zero, maybe an election isn't so daft? The slowdown is gonna be stark.
The IMF prediction is complete nonsense.
It seems to be the talk that Lockdown savings will be significantly drawn down by mid-year this year. I'd be interested if or when you begin to see if this corresponds with demand in your sector.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
All over the place - like every other set of economists predictions. But there's plenty of time to find out, before the next election.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
If Osborne had not vetoed Gordon Brown as head of the IMF, the government might find it easier to dismiss IMF forecasts as biased.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
Edit: I'd also add that error bars would be useful for this sort of projection, for that reason.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
If Osborne had not vetoed Gordon Brown as head of the IMF, the government might find it easier to dismiss IMF forecasts as biased.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
Where these things annoy me is on the morning of a GDP release by the ONS, the news reports what it's expected to be. Why not just wait to here what the ONS say?
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
You've made a typo there. You said 'unreliable' when you meant 'made up.'
Although it is perhaps worth reflecting that even under sanctions high gas and oil prices will be be benefitting Russia.
- ”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.”
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.
I would agree with this. The vast majority don’t know how inflation got out of control or anything about the incompetence of the BoE but they perceive that the people in general and public sector employees in particular are being asked to pay the price of a government cock up with a real and significant reduction in real wages. And it just doesn’t seem fair. The government’s refusal to recognise that makes them out of touch and difficult to support.
Add to that the perception that the government is desperate to cut taxes. They may not be actually doing it, but it's all some on the right talk about (see also today's Telegraph and Mail.)
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.
The Govt have made the right calculation here.
The strikers will waver before the Govt does - Unions are leaking cash.
That probably is the government's calculation. I'm not convinced it will help politically, or practically in terms of restoring services in the face of staff shortages.
And on the IMF this is precisely the price that everyone said was worth paying for Brexit.
Job done, mission accomplished. If you want some of that sovereignty to spread on your toast then there will be a cost, is what small children in Worksop pointed out, and this is that cost.
All the Brexiters on here should rejoice.
Very few on here (perhaps @williamglenn pre-transition) said Brexit would be a disaster. We said that it would lop off a few points of growth - I used the 2p on beer and fags analogy, which few notice but which makes them poorer. And here we are.
Problem is, a whole bunch of other events have happened, thus exacerbating Brexit's negative effects.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
It's a forecast! Let's assume they have some guesses in there which turn out to be less accurate. They - like so many other global economists - think the UK is in the shit. People in the UK know it's in the shit. The official data recently had a "whoops did we say best in the G7 we meant worst" correction. Because forecasts.
So again, the inference is that the IMF et Al somehow have it in for the UK. Their forecast must be wrong as it's attacking us/the Tory government/Brexit. But none of those things matter to the IMF. So it's very unlikely this is a malicious forecast, isn't it?
You have to say it's a bit unfortunate for the government that this strikingly unbouncy IMF forecast happens to coincide, precisely , with all the Brexit Three Year anniversary coverage, today.
For many people the two will therefore become even more obviously linked together than before. Poor ickle government.
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
Plenty of Lab voters voted to leave the EU. Why it was said that even the leader of the Labour Party at the time wasn't undisposed to do so, despite vague indications to the contrary.
If senior Tories spent more energy fixing the problems they caused rather than feathering their own nest or pursuing comic book fantasies would be in a better place.
And on the IMF this is precisely the price that everyone said was worth paying for Brexit.
Job done, mission accomplished. If you want some of that sovereignty to spread on your toast then there will be a cost, is what small children in Worksop pointed out, and this is that cost.
All the Brexiters on here should rejoice.
Very few on here (perhaps @williamglenn pre-transition) said Brexit would be a disahhster. We said that it would lop a few points of growth - I used the 2p on beer and fags analogy, which few notice but which makes them poorer. And here we are.
Problem is, a whole bunch of other events have happened, thus exacerbating Brexit's negative effects.
Current guesstimate is still around 4%. That's a pretty big hit to an economy where long term growth has been under 2%.
But you're right about that being a whole lot worse in the context of world-wide economic shocks.
An eloquent and brutal summation of the Plight of the Tories. I cannot argue with a word of it
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
Luckily they are on the case. Hague in The Times...
Tories can win if the whole party is hungry for it
The next election can be another 1992 rather than 1997 for Conservatives but they don’t have long to prove themselves
Why is everyone getting worked up about the reliability or otherwise of the IMF's predictions?
We do not need a prediction - we know the Govt's economic record is cr*p. They keep telling us there is no money left and they have been in charge since 2010. Who they gonna blame? Ghostbusters??
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
Plenty of Lab voters voted to leave the EU. Why it was said that even the leader of the Labour Party at the time wasn't undisposed to do so, despite vague indications to the contrary.
Whilst it true that some left wing Labour voters supported some Tory policies like Brexit , they were a minority.
The last roll of the Tory dice is to claim ‘all politicians are the same, as bad as each other’. Dragging the whole edifice down with them. It’s not true and for the sake of the country must be resisted. We need a democratic change of government.
@IanDunt Listening to Daniel Hannan's list of Brexit achievements on Radio 4: vaccines, Ukraine, deregulation, Australian trade deals. They're either false, irrelevant, actively self-harming or meaningless. After three years, they have nothing to show for all their nonsense.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
Indeed. And as we all know one person's anecdotal experience completely negates the lived experience of basically everyone else.
If your argument is "crisis, what crisis?" consider how that went for Sunny Jim.
Tories going round telling people "everything is fine, the economy is booming, if you're hurting it must be your fault" is how you lose by 150 instead of 50.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
I really wouldn't be surprised if there are two nations out there right now. One is having fistfuls of cash thrown at it that it doesn't know how to spend and the other is broke.
The first fills the pubs, the second is invisible because it's stuck at home.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
And yet in counter to that over the last couple of weeks local news from the Nottinghamshire/Lincs border is of 3 long established pubs/restaurants (decades or centuries long) closing because of a combination of falling footfall and massively increased costs. It certainly feels like a recession round here.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
It's a forecast! Let's assume they have some guesses in there which turn out to be less accurate. They - like so many other global economists - think the UK is in the shit. People in the UK know it's in the shit. The official data recently had a "whoops did we say best in the G7 we meant worst" correction. Because forecasts.
So again, the inference is that the IMF et Al somehow have it in for the UK. Their forecast must be wrong as it's attacking us/the Tory government/Brexit. But none of those things matter to the IMF. So it's very unlikely this is a malicious forecast, isn't it?
Lordy. That's not the inference: it's a simple question of how accurate their figures usually are. 0.1% out either way? 0.2%? More? Less? I've done a quick look at the 2019 release, and if I'm comparing correctly, they were 0.6% higher than Germany's, and 0.1% lower on the UKs. But I've got the school run to do so migth have got it wrong in a hurry. (1)
I could easily throw your comment back at you: you are so keen to see this disastrous government fail (my words, my feelings) that you are willing to take any data at face value. Including, as some do below, Russia's.
(And that's where my original question comes in: I cannot see how anyone can make a reliable estimate of Russia's GDP at the moment, with their government acting as it is.)
That’s almost all as a result of the unwinding of the chip shortage, and the releasing of a lot of pent-up demand. The top end of the used car market is in free fall, as people have spent most of the alast two years paying over list for used cars because they couldn’t get new ones.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
Edit: I'd also add that error bars would be useful for this sort of projection, for that reason.
Economists have a variety of opinions on a range of topics so of course it is easy to find some who don't like the IMF especially if they disagree with some position the IMF has taken. The IMF has an okay but not stellar forecasting record, they tend to be over optimistic on growth for countries where they have a programme but are otherwise impartial. Their published forecasts tend to be a bit slow to absorb new information as they are only updated at most four times a year and being a complex bureaucracy producing integrated forecasts for almost 200 countries it means the WEO forecasting process can be a bit slow and cumbersome, not necessarily reacting to new information as quickly as more nimble forecasters in the private sector. I am happy to be the PB IMF expert should anyone have any further questions about its workings.
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
Plenty of Lab voters voted to leave the EU. Why it was said that even the leader of the Labour Party at the time wasn't undisposed to do so, despite vague indications to the contrary.
Whilst it true that some left wing Labour voters supported some Tory policies like Brexit , they were a minority.
The last roll of the Tory dice is to claim ‘all politicians are the same, as bad as each other’. Dragging the whole edifice down with them. It’s not true and for the sake of the country must be resisted. We need a democratic change of government.
We always need the means to have a democratic change of government and we will get one soon enough.
As for "some left wing Labour voters supported...Brexit" I think you'll find it was quite a few overall Labour voters. By no means were the only Lab voters voting for Brexit on the (hard) left of the party. I don't think Kate Hoey was a big Corbyn fan, for example.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
Where these things annoy me is on the morning of a GDP release by the ONS, the news reports what it's expected to be. Why not just wait to here what the ONS say?
That’s a real pet hate. It’s the same with ministers making speeches, the news is what journalists think might be said. Better to make what has actually been said, tomorrow’s news.
@IanDunt Listening to Daniel Hannan's list of Brexit achievements on Radio 4: vaccines, Ukraine, deregulation, Australian trade deals. They're either false, irrelevant, actively self-harming or meaningless. After three years, they have nothing to show for all their nonsense.
To be fair, Ian Dunt saying that isn't interesting. Nick Ferrari, on the other hand...
Nick Ferrari - What are the best 3 achievements since getting brexit done?
Richard Holden(Transport Minister) - The vaccine
Nick Ferrari - Full Fact say that's not true & Dr June Raine(Boss, MHRA) has also said that's not true.. so can we strike that one out?
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
The twittersphere is enjoying an old article on how Brexit will be going by around now, from Sir Daniel Hannan, that is so off beam that it's made my week.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
And yet in counter to that over the last couple of weeks local news from the Nottinghamshire/Lincs border is of 3 long established pubs/restaurants (decades or centuries long) closing because of a combination of falling footfall and massively increased costs. It certainly feels like a recession round here.
If you look at the last few months' data in the GfK consumer confidence survey, confidence among those on £50k+ has recovered back to normal levels while for everyone else it is close to record lows. There is a wide range of experiences out there, and the cost of living crisis is clearly impacting those at the top much less than everyone else.
An eloquent and brutal summation of the Plight of the Tories. I cannot argue with a word of it
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
I wondered if it was the shift to electric, but their petrol is cheaper, and the second hand prices are high too, so that can't be it.
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
I spent 8 weeks in the USA last year
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
Plenty of Lab voters voted to leave the EU. Why it was said that even the leader of the Labour Party at the time wasn't undisposed to do so, despite vague indications to the contrary.
Whilst it true that some left wing Labour voters supported some Tory policies like Brexit , they were a minority.
The last roll of the Tory dice is to claim ‘all politicians are the same, as bad as each other’. Dragging the whole edifice down with them. It’s not true and for the sake of the country must be resisted. We need a democratic change of government.
We always need the means to have a democratic change of government and we will get one soon enough.
As for "some left wing Labour voters supported...Brexit" I think you'll find it was quite a few overall Labour voters. By no means were the only Lab voters voting for Brexit on the (hard) left of the party. I don't think Kate Hoey was a big Corbyn fan, for example.
Kaye Hoey. Good grief. I remember her on that boat with Nigel Farage. What a way to start the day.
What dont I get? The jobs market round here is incredibly strong, people clearly have money as discretionary spending seems to be growing and the M & E business I work for is going to have a record year.
I have read for the last year on here about the economic armegeddon about to hit. When is it going to happen?
I left school in 1984 when you either went to College or signed on, there are jobs for everyone now.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
And yet in counter to that over the last couple of weeks local news from the Nottinghamshire/Lincs border is of 3 long established pubs/restaurants (decades or centuries long) closing because of a combination of falling footfall and massively increased costs. It certainly feels like a recession round here.
Coincidentally notived the same sort of story headlining the local news sites in Somerset when looking for something last night.
If you actually look at the details of the poll 33% want more restrictions on strikers and 31% even oppose the nurses' strike, both those figures are more than the current Tory voteshare.
So there is some for political gains for Sunak from taking a tough line with unions. Economically too the government needs to get borrowing and inflation down and cannot be seen to award excessive public sector payrises either
I wondered if it was the shift to electric, but their petrol is cheaper, and the second hand prices are high too, so that can't be it.
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I was in the US just pre-Covid, in Las Vegas and a guy pulled up outside the hotel in a pick up. It was absolutely enormous. Perhaps memory is playing tricks but it seemed to me to be as big as a 4-tonner if not a London bus (perhaps not quite that big, but huge).
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
"It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
..Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.
The EU, meanwhile, continues to turn inwards, clinging to its dream of political amalgamation as the euro and migration crises worsen.
Our universities are flourishing, taking the world’s brightest students and, where appropriate, charging accordingly. Their revenues, in consequence, are rising, while they continue to collaborate with research centres in Europe and around the world.
The number of student visas granted each year is decided by MPs who, now that they no longer need to worry about unlimited EU migration, can afford to take a long-term view.
Unsurprisingly, several other European countries have opted to copy Britain’s deal with the EU, based as it is upon a common market rather than a common government.
Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief. As we left the EU, we straightened our backs, looked about us, and realised that we were still a nation to be reckoned with ."
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
I spent 8 weeks in the USA last year
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
This is my sense too as a former US resident. Its problems are different to Europe's, it's hard to say if they're better or worse, and it retains some distinct advantages.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
Trying to do fireworks in a not quite dark summer sky would indeed be a fitting tribute to the level of thinking things through that has been a hallmark of our handling of Brexit.
The twittersphere is enjoying an old article on how Brexit will be going by around now, from Sir Daniel Hannan, that is so off beam that it's made my week.
The Conservative activists interviewed on R4's PM yesterday were both very keen on the idea of Hannan as the next party chair. (And very unenthusiastic about Rishi.)
Which seems a pretty fair indication of where the party is.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
3 years later and Leave politicians are still lying .
70 new trade deals , you mean 68 that were carried across from the EU and two new ones which are crap and screw agriculture . And no the vaccine rollout was nothing to do with being out of the EU .
The areas that voted Brexit and which have now suffered more financially than Remain areas can just suck it up and enjoy their alleged new found sovereignty!
An eloquent and brutal summation of the Plight of the Tories. I cannot argue with a word of it
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
Unless RefUK overtake the Tories as the main party of the right no they don't need to worry about their existence under FPTP even if they fall to under 100 seats.
The pendulum will turn eventually as it always does. Indeed Labour fell to just 52 seats in 1931 but won a landslide victory 14 years later
Listening to various vox pops it seems like most voters think this long march into penury is either the fault of three weeks of Truss or Brexit. As Rishi and his Cons are responsible for both it looks like they've run out of road.
Meanwhile the next train to Eastleigh leaves in twenty minutes.....
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
I spent 8 weeks in the USA last year
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
This is my sense too as a former US resident. Its problems are different to Europe's, it's hard to say if they're better or worse, and it retains some distinct advantages.
I fear America is about to blow its incredible advantage in AI, due to Woke
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I saw a fascinating infographic about the F150 recently
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
Am surprised we had 4.1% growth in 2022. Given that the optimistic view for 2023 is zero, maybe an election isn't so daft? The slowdown is gonna be stark.
The IMF prediction is complete nonsense.
The men from Eastleigh and Dubai have spoken. You heard it here first
Not much mention of Brexit though there. High taxes, high mortgage costs and high energy bills and the UK outperforming growth expectations last year are the main reason for the forecast decline this year.
Even labour shortages as much to do with UK workers not returning full time to the workforce post pandemic as the end of free movement
The Tories road to recovery requires them to admit that the country is in a big mess and they caused it. Until they radically accept that, they will not recover.
I'm not at all sure that's true. After all, Labour never accepted any blame for Gordon Brown leaving the country in a state in 2010, did they? And look at them now.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
The trouble for the Tories is that it looks very much like we have Free Movement under them, anyway. Last year saw 500,000 net inward migrants, a huge historic record, and of course they have utterly failed to get a grip on the Dinghy People, and seem incapable of doing so (Braverman rightly tells the Tories in the Telegraph today that unless they do stop the boats their electoral defeat will be certain and grim)
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
The trouble for the Tories is that it looks very much like we have Free Movement under them, anyway. Last year saw 500,000 net inward migrants, a huge historic record, and of course they have utterly failed to get a grip on the Dinghy People, and seem incapable of doing so (Braverman rightly tells the Tories in the Telegraph today that unless they do stop the boats their electoral defeat will be certain and grim)
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
Depends entirely on the economic situation under the likely Labour government and whether free movement of Romanians etc to the UK again reduces wages for the lower paid.
Governments normally lose elections, oppositions rarely win them. Even having changed to Starmer Labour was still well behind the Tories in summer 2021
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I saw a fascinating infographic about the F150 recently
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
I think Musk took the p*ss out of Ford for that, only for others to point out his Cybertruck is similarly bed-limited.
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
It's a forecast. They are always prisoners of events. So the valid question to ask if "the IMF prediction is complete nonsense as Nerys hopes is why?
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.
The IMF doesn't necessarily have a good reputation - even amongst economists.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
You've made a typo there. You said 'unreliable' when you meant 'made up.'
Although it is perhaps worth reflecting that even under sanctions high gas and oil prices will be be benefitting Russia.
Indeed, though many of those prices have fallen, and their volumes of oil and gas are a fair bit down. And that's before the problems with the rest of their economy because of the war and the sanctions.
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I saw a fascinating infographic about the F150 recently
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
UK pickups tend to come in 3 shapes: single cab, extended cab where you can squeeze people in behind the front row, and full fat 4 door. The chassis is the same, so extra seating is stolen from the cargo space
There's an obvious question that needs asking about this IMF story: how accurate are their predictions usually? How did their predictions of growth this far out match the reality as it happened?
Not sure that matters - on the ground and in peoples pockets, it feels like its right
Total anecdote, my local pub has had a record January, Im good mates with the landlord and he can't believe how busy the pub has been, so far takings are 30% up on last January. Its only a small pub and on Saturday he had 6 bar staff on, normaly in January he would have 3.
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
And yet in counter to that over the last couple of weeks local news from the Nottinghamshire/Lincs border is of 3 long established pubs/restaurants (decades or centuries long) closing because of a combination of falling footfall and massively increased costs. It certainly feels like a recession round here.
Coincidentally notived the same sort of story headlining the local news sites in Somerset when looking for something last night.
My local (The Bridge) has just closed. I hadn't been in there for over a year (so my fault, I guess) - but it always looked packed. You never really know how these businesses are run. My guess - and it is only a guess - is that it was so hammered by lockdowns that following covid it had to be at capacity, all the time, just to keep its head above water. The beer was average at best (JW Lees) - hence my personal indifference to it - but I appreciate that's not all everyone wants from a pub. @ManchesterKurt may have a view on this!
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
I spent 8 weeks in the USA last year
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
Yes, I was observing the economy, not commenting on the politics. It happened a few times that people would start telling me about the forthcoming civil war.
Quite apart from the impact on the workers, Tesco appears to be working very hard to compete with the discounters. It's been very successful in keeping its prices down (though my gut feeling is not as successful as Sainsburys) but it's also a much less pleasant shopping experience - the range is nothing like as good as it was five years ago and you get bombarded with music all the way around now. I can see how the first of these helps keep prices down. Presumably there must be a point to the second but I don't get it.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
- ”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.”
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.
I would agree with this. The vast majority don’t know how inflation got out of control or anything about the incompetence of the BoE but they perceive that the people in general and public sector employees in particular are being asked to pay the price of a government cock up with a real and significant reduction in real wages. And it just doesn’t seem fair. The government’s refusal to recognise that makes them out of touch and difficult to support.
Add to that the perception that the government is desperate to cut taxes. They may not be actually doing it, but it's all some on the right talk about (see also today's Telegraph and Mail.)
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.
It's worth noting that taxes have been rising for some time, due to fiscal drag (not adjusting the personal allowance). But it's not at the top of most people's priorities.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
You don't think the unions are trying to destroy the government?
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
Hah, fair enough, a clumsy analogy and I take that back. I will reframe it thus: If striking is seen as a successful way of achieving a favourable outcome for strikers, we will see more of it. I would however note that some unions ARE out to destroy the government. Syndicalism was built in to the NUM for example. I can't comment on any of the current unions though I very much get the impression that the NEU would dearly like to bring down the government and replace it with something more like Jeremy Corbyn
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I saw a fascinating infographic about the F150 recently
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
I think Musk took the p*ss out of Ford for that, only for others to point out his Cybertruck is similarly bed-limited.
Let's not exaggerate. I have a double cab dmax and the load space is still enormous compared to an estate car. Easily takes 12 x 20kg bags of horse feed on top of all the crap which lives permanently in there
Certainly my impression having spend six weeks travelling around the US last summer was that there isn't the same post-covid impact on the economy there that you can see here. Here, we see the businesses closing, half empty shops and restaurants - whereas the US seemed to be as buzzing as ever. Of course as travellers we tend to gravitate towards more attractive, prosperous places, but I did do some overnights in 'ordinary' towns in Pensylvannia and North Carolina. And even Sevenoaks has a few boarded up shops right now.
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
I spent 8 weeks in the USA last year
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
Yes, I was observing the economy, not commenting on the politics. It happened a few times that people would start telling me about the forthcoming civil war.
I think you can put a lot of the US recent outperformance down to cheaper energy prices. Particularly since gas prices started rising in 2021 as Gazprom prepared the groundwork for Putin’s master plan and started turning down the taps.
Before that their fracking boom led to massively lower input prices for petrochemicals since the mid 2010s. And now they’re going at least as fast as us on renewables.
And further back still, they spent their way out of the financial crisis and got away with it because they have the dollar.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
The trouble for the Tories is that it looks very much like we have Free Movement under them, anyway. Last year saw 500,000 net inward migrants, a huge historic record, and of course they have utterly failed to get a grip on the Dinghy People, and seem incapable of doing so (Braverman rightly tells the Tories in the Telegraph today that unless they do stop the boats their electoral defeat will be certain and grim)
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
In practice, we've currently got the worst of all worlds- more faff at the border, harder options for Brits going to Europe, but the total numbers (if that's your worry) are similar to higher, and the immigrants now coming are culturally and economically more different than before (if that's your worry).
Maybe it could have been different, but it's worked out as a definite self sabotage.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
You don't think the unions are trying to destroy the government?
Do you? This isn't the 60s and 70s. Whether you agree with them or not they are driven by more money and terms and conditions not toppling govts. I doubt there is a single nurse out there thinking of getting rid of the govt by their actions. They want more money. And not least because the govt will lose anyway, but not till they call an election which the strikers have no control over.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
You don't think the unions are trying to destroy the government?
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
You don't think the unions are trying to destroy the government?
The unions do not need to, the govt is busy destroying itself.
I'm sympathetic to those wanting pay increases in line with inflation. In particular, teaching ought to be a more highly valued profession. But:
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers? - Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists. - In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%. - Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
I would hope that most would consider equating strikers with terrorists is not an analogy that should be acceptable in this debate. People have an absolute right to strike and the whole essence of industrial action is compromise. In most industrial action It helps neither side if one or the other suffers an absolute win as it either leads to a collapse in the workforce or a collapse in the business. It is absolutely true that you can't negotiate/compromise with people whose aims are to destroy you. That does not apply to these strikes however much you might like to paint it that way.
You don't think the unions are trying to destroy the government?
Do you? This isn't the 60s and 70s. Whether you agree with them or not they are driven by more money and terms and conditions not toppling govts. I doubt there is a single nurse out there thinking of getting rid of the govt by their actions. They want more money. And not least because the govt will lose anyway, but not till they call an election which the strikers have no control over.
I do. Otherwise why would they be so vindictive towards ordinary working people who can't resolve their dispute other than at a general election?
I see the IMF is forecasting that in 2023 the UK economy will perform worse than the Russian one (that is subject to international sanctions)
What a fucking mess the Tories have made of EVERYTHING.
It’s remarkable. The country is in such a mess, So much so that Tory failure is now a topic of conversation down my local.
Yep it's something I've noticed for the first time in my life. Random people on pavements, in shops, out walking lambasting this Government. Sometimes with venom.
And far from your stereotypical lefties.
It's one of the reasons I'm convinced they're in for an absolute hammering. I've never known such anger with a governing (allegedly) party here.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
The trouble for the Tories is that it looks very much like we have Free Movement under them, anyway. Last year saw 500,000 net inward migrants, a huge historic record, and of course they have utterly failed to get a grip on the Dinghy People, and seem incapable of doing so (Braverman rightly tells the Tories in the Telegraph today that unless they do stop the boats their electoral defeat will be certain and grim)
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
Depends entirely on the economic situation under the likely Labour government and whether free movement of Romanians etc to the UK again reduces wages for the lower paid.
Governments normally lose elections, oppositions rarely win them. Even having changed to Starmer Labour was still well behind the Tories in summer 2021
Real wages increase under Labour; they stagnate under the Tories. Go figure.
An eloquent and brutal summation of the Plight of the Tories. I cannot argue with a word of it
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
Probably the less said about Romford the better, given what we know but can't say
Without saying anything, there's not much sign of any "we're not preparing for an election, perish the thought, but here's an update from your local Focus / In Touch / Herald Team" campaign going on.
According to Daniel Hannan in 2016, from the article below :
It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
To be fair to Lord Dan Han, he was not alone in failing to predict Covid and the Ukraine War
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
If that requires free movement again though that leaves the red wall back open to the Tories again
The trouble for the Tories is that it looks very much like we have Free Movement under them, anyway. Last year saw 500,000 net inward migrants, a huge historic record, and of course they have utterly failed to get a grip on the Dinghy People, and seem incapable of doing so (Braverman rightly tells the Tories in the Telegraph today that unless they do stop the boats their electoral defeat will be certain and grim)
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
Depends entirely on the economic situation under the likely Labour government and whether free movement of Romanians etc to the UK again reduces wages for the lower paid.
Governments normally lose elections, oppositions rarely win them. Even having changed to Starmer Labour was still well behind the Tories in summer 2021
Real wages increase under Labour; they stagnate under the Tories. Go figure.
UK gdp per capita was far higher in 1997 than 1979 and also amongst the highest in Western Europe compared to one of the lowest in Western Europe in 1979
The US car market is a self-contained ecosystem that's disconnected from the rest of the world and is utterly dominated by full size, body on frame trucks. The top three sellers are F-150, Silverado and Ram. (The GMC Sierra is also at #6 but that's basically a Silverado in crocodile skin boots).
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I saw a fascinating infographic about the F150 recently
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
I think Musk took the p*ss out of Ford for that, only for others to point out his Cybertruck is similarly bed-limited.
Let's not exaggerate. I have a double cab dmax and the load space is still enormous compared to an estate car. Easily takes 12 x 20kg bags of horse feed on top of all the crap which lives permanently in there
Yeah, but the chart shows how the load bed has decreased very significantly over time. Then again, the vehicle makers now their market.
On that, I was interested to learn that Ford were making an electric Transit that had, from memory, a 150-mile range. That seems tiny, but is ideal for people doing door-to-door deliveries. Any more, and it pushes prices up for capability that doesn't get used.
An eloquent and brutal summation of the Plight of the Tories. I cannot argue with a word of it
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
Probably the less said about Romford the better, given what we know but can't say
Without saying anything, there's not much sign of any "we're not preparing for an election, perish the thought, but here's an update from your local Focus / In Touch / Herald Team" campaign going on.
Stuart, your man on the Romford Spot.
Labour won Romford in 1997 of course with Andrew Rosindell making one of the few Tory gains in 2001 to win back the seat.
What dont I get? The jobs market round here is incredibly strong, people clearly have money as discretionary spending seems to be growing and the M & E business I work for is going to have a record year.
I have read for the last year on here about the economic armegeddon about to hit. When is it going to happen?
I left school in 1984 when you either went to College or signed on, there are jobs for everyone now.
There is full employment, but very high cost of living increases which hit the lowest paid the hardest.
So you have a job but the rent, food and heating are killing you.
A question - do you know exactly how much you are spending on electricity each month, without having to look it up?
Comments
Even the CotE didn't dispute them but said that people often exceed such forecasts.
But there's plenty of time to find out, before the next election.
I'm not dismissing this forecast; and I'm not a fan of this government, either. But I think the question I asked is a sensible one, and an answer would be informative.
(I'd also add that anyone trying to calculate Russia's GDP at the moment is on a fool's errand. Their figures are simply unreliable.)
Edit: I'd also add that error bars would be useful for this sort of projection, for that reason.
Someone needs to run an AA style session for Conservatives. “I am a Conservative and I supported policies that wrecked the country “
Even today , they’re saying it’s not too bad or others are to blame.
Although it is perhaps worth reflecting that even under sanctions high gas and oil prices will be be benefitting Russia.
Job done, mission accomplished. If you want some of that sovereignty to spread on your toast then there will be a cost, is what small children in Worksop pointed out, and this is that cost.
All the Brexiters on here should rejoice.
Very few on here (perhaps @williamglenn pre-transition) said Brexit would be a disaster. We said that it would lop off a few points of growth - I used the 2p on beer and fags analogy, which few notice but which makes them poorer. And here we are.
Problem is, a whole bunch of other events have happened, thus exacerbating Brexit's negative effects.
So again, the inference is that the IMF et Al somehow have it in for the UK. Their forecast must be wrong as it's attacking us/the Tory government/Brexit. But none of those things matter to the IMF. So it's very unlikely this is a malicious forecast, isn't it?
For many people the two will therefore become even more obviously linked together than before. Poor ickle government.
That's a pretty big hit to an economy where long term growth has been under 2%.
But you're right about that being a whole lot worse in the context of world-wide economic shocks.
The conclusion gives a taste:
"If the party carries on as it is for the next eighteen months, it will lose. It will lose badly. It could lose as many as 300 of its seats. It could slip behind the SNP, or at least be less than half of the opposition. The party should not be worrying about the Red Wall, it is already lost, but Romford, Tatton, and a dozen other places that you don’t believe might oust them. It should not simply be worried about the next election, but its very existence. It is almost impossible to overstate the difficulty it is in. The next election could be humiliating, neutering experience for the party - half the front bench wiped out, almost all the rising stars gone, a rump of the party left picking through the rubble.
Failure to be honest about this almost certainly guarantees it."
https://joxleywrites.substack.com/p/lets-be-honest-the-tories-are-going?r=1o0ogx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Another total anecdote, the number of M & E tenders that we have had for work this year is much higher that this point last year, Construction is going to have a very busy year.
Another total anecdote, the Miller & Carter restaurant near me (a very expensive vastly overrated steak joint) is booked up for weeks in advance.
It really does not feel like a recession round here
In the US the increase in the homeless and beggars is the one change since covid, but those problems were there before.
Laughably Justin Webb misnamed Villiers as ‘Theresa May’. At least she might have provided a less homogenised view.
Tories can win if the whole party is hungry for it
The next election can be another 1992 rather than 1997 for Conservatives but they don’t have long to prove themselves
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/william-hague-tories-can-win-if-whole-party-is-hungry-for-it-ptkxdmv87
We do not need a prediction - we know the Govt's economic record is cr*p. They keep telling us there is no money left and they have been in charge since 2010. Who they gonna blame? Ghostbusters??
The last roll of the Tory dice is to claim ‘all politicians are the same, as bad as each other’. Dragging the whole edifice down with them. It’s not true and for the sake of the country must be resisted. We need a democratic change of government.
Listening to Daniel Hannan's list of Brexit achievements on Radio 4: vaccines, Ukraine, deregulation, Australian trade deals. They're either false, irrelevant, actively self-harming or meaningless. After three years, they have nothing to show for all their nonsense.
If your argument is "crisis, what crisis?" consider how that went for Sunny Jim.
Tories going round telling people "everything is fine, the economy is booming, if you're hurting it must be your fault" is how you lose by 150 instead of 50.
The first fills the pubs, the second is invisible because it's stuck at home.
I could easily throw your comment back at you: you are so keen to see this disastrous government fail (my words, my feelings) that you are willing to take any data at face value. Including, as some do below, Russia's.
(And that's where my original question comes in: I cannot see how anyone can make a reliable estimate of Russia's GDP at the moment, with their government acting as it is.)
(1): https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/01/11/weo-update-january-2019
As for "some left wing Labour voters supported...Brexit" I think you'll find it was quite a few overall Labour voters. By no means were the only Lab voters voting for Brexit on the (hard) left of the party. I don't think Kate Hoey was a big Corbyn fan, for example.
Nick Ferrari - What are the best 3 achievements since getting brexit done?
Richard Holden(Transport Minister) - The vaccine
Nick Ferrari - Full Fact say that's not true & Dr June Raine(Boss, MHRA) has also said that's not true.. so can we strike that one out?
#LBC
https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1620334433789431810
https://reaction.life/britain-looks-like-brexit/
These vehicles are cheap to build and cheap to sell due to their massive economies of scale. A base model F-150 is the equivalent of £24k. In the UK you pay more than that for a base model Focus.
I travelled through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and visited multiple small towns and big cities
My impression is different. America is in quite a tough place. Even a big prosperous city like Denver has a new and massive problem - the voiding of its downtown post Covid. And already-troubled cities like New Orleans now have worse crime than they have seen in decades
What America DOES still possess is a sense of dynamism and hope - in some regions - a sense that things might get better simply because it is America. It's high tech sector is still peerless and world beating, for instance. This stuff is lacking in the UK - and across Europe
But on the other hand the political divide in America makes Brexit look like a toddler's shouting match, and it is the only major western nation that has suffered an attempted quasi-coup in recent years. And there is no obvious route out of America's vicious political and cultural civil war
America is simultaneously better placed than Europe yet also significantly more endangered
The jobs market round here is incredibly strong, people clearly have money as discretionary spending seems to be growing and the M & E business I work for is going to have a record year.
I have read for the last year on here about the economic armegeddon about to hit. When is it going to happen?
I left school in 1984 when you either went to College or signed on, there are jobs for everyone now.
The economy is still growing (albeit by just 0.1% q/q in Q4 2022) after a relatively strong recovery since 2020.
But this was flattered by net trade, led by weaker imports; consumer spending tanked at the end of last year.
https://twitter.com/julianHjessop/status/1620335930115784711
https://news.sky.com/story/rising-public-support-for-unions-despite-widespread-strikes-sky-news-poll-suggests-12799325
So there is some for political gains for Sunak from taking a tough line with unions. Economically too the government needs to get borrowing and inflation down and cannot be seen to award excessive public sector payrises either
"It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration. As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.
..Older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels: steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.
The EU, meanwhile, continues to turn inwards, clinging to its dream of political amalgamation as the euro and migration crises worsen.
Our universities are flourishing, taking the world’s brightest students and, where appropriate, charging accordingly. Their revenues, in consequence, are rising, while they continue to collaborate with research centres in Europe and around the world.
The number of student visas granted each year is decided by MPs who, now that they no longer need to worry about unlimited EU migration, can afford to take a long-term view.
Unsurprisingly, several other European countries have opted to copy Britain’s deal with the EU, based as it is upon a common market rather than a common government.
Perhaps the greatest benefit, though, is not easy to quantify. Britain has recovered its self-belief. As we left the EU, we straightened our backs, looked about us, and realised that we were still a nation to be reckoned with ."
Which seems a pretty fair indication of where the party is.
“Well for one you didn’t notice so we got away with it but for the other there was backlash so we decided to intervene”
There is no way to justify that explanation.
https://twitter.com/michaelpforan/status/1620341046495543296
Nonetheless that is quite painful reading now. The problem for Brexiteers (and I am one) is that everything bad is now being successfully blamed on Brexit, just as everything bad was once adroitly blamed on the EU by eurosceptics
What goes around comes around
I repeat my prediction that we will be back in the SM/CU (or as good as) by the end of Starmer's first term
70 new trade deals , you mean 68 that were carried across from the EU and two new ones which are crap and screw agriculture . And no the vaccine rollout was nothing to do with being out of the EU .
The areas that voted Brexit and which have now suffered more financially than Remain areas can just suck it up and enjoy their alleged new found sovereignty!
The pendulum will turn eventually as it always does. Indeed Labour fell to just 52 seats in 1931 but won a landslide victory 14 years later
Meanwhile the next train to Eastleigh leaves in twenty minutes.....
When it was first introduced, it was a real pickup truck. The load bed was 65% of the length of the vehicle.
Today it's 30%.
The modern F150 is a minivan with a doorless trunk...
Even labour shortages as much to do with UK workers not returning full time to the workforce post pandemic as the end of free movement
Labour can say: what's the big difference then, at least in the Single Market we can all live and work in the EU again, and oldies can go retire to Spain, and we will have young Spaniards back working at Costa and Pret
I sense it will be sellable, the tide against Brexit is one way and it is powerful. You can feel it
The Tories have blown it. Blown Brexit
- The only way for public sector workers to have more is for others to have less. The money for this has to be found somehow. It isn't cost free. And almost nobody in the private sector is getting pay increases in line with inflation. We're all getting poorer. Why should the public sector be insulated from this at the expense of private sector workers?
- Giving money to strikers only encourages more strikes. It's like negotiating with terrorists.
- In many cases they're not asking for pay increases in line with inflation; they're asking for pay increases way above inflation. Now maybe that's justified by the market, but it's a hard sell to a call centre worker who's lucky if he gets 5%.
- Again, specifically on teachers, the NEU is a malign influence on children's education and anything that can be done to destroy it must be a good thing.
Governments normally lose elections, oppositions rarely win them. Even having changed to Starmer Labour was still well behind the Tories in summer 2021
I hadn't been in there for over a year (so my fault, I guess) - but it always looked packed.
You never really know how these businesses are run. My guess - and it is only a guess - is that it was so hammered by lockdowns that following covid it had to be at capacity, all the time, just to keep its head above water.
The beer was average at best (JW Lees) - hence my personal indifference to it - but I appreciate that's not all everyone wants from a pub.
@ManchesterKurt may have a view on this!
I will reframe it thus:
If striking is seen as a successful way of achieving a favourable outcome for strikers, we will see more of it.
I would however note that some unions ARE out to destroy the government. Syndicalism was built in to the NUM for example. I can't comment on any of the current unions though I very much get the impression that the NEU would dearly like to bring down the government and replace it with something more like Jeremy Corbyn
Before that their fracking boom led to massively lower input prices for petrochemicals since the mid 2010s. And now they’re going at least as fast as us on renewables.
And further back still, they spent their way out of the financial crisis and got away with it because they have the dollar.
This version of Brexit is plausibly the best version there ever could be.
We told you before you voted for it, it would be a shitshow.
And now here we are...
Maybe it could have been different, but it's worked out as a definite self sabotage.
And far from your stereotypical lefties.
It's one of the reasons I'm convinced they're in for an absolute hammering. I've never known such anger with a governing (allegedly) party here.
Stuart, your man on the Romford Spot.
But it will only happen after a lengthy spell in the wilderness, where they will need to leave the nutters who helped ruin this country to wither.
And my emphasis is on centre-right and not far-right.
On that, I was interested to learn that Ford were making an electric Transit that had, from memory, a 150-mile range. That seems tiny, but is ideal for people doing door-to-door deliveries. Any more, and it pushes prices up for capability that doesn't get used.
the seat.
So you have a job but the rent, food and heating are killing you.
A question - do you know exactly how much you are spending on electricity each month, without having to look it up?