I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
I used to be surprised that selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twats with charm rise so easily to the top in the UK.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
Rubbish. The British problem is a total lack of self-awareness. Not humble bragging.
Imagine if, for example, Fred Goodwin, Mark James, Simon Case, Amanda Spielman, Suella Braverman or Liz Truss could understand their own abilities and weaknesses properly, so they could get jobs on their intellectual and moral level. What a boon that would be to the nation.
Americans don't mind failure and over ambition, as long as you try again.
You are just reinforcing the article, accept your station in life and don't brag as the British stereotype.
To be fair to Goodwin he did turn RBS from a small Scottish Bank to the biggest in the world at one point before the Crash
He was the one who crashed it through over expansion.
Your second sentence is even more nonsensical than your usual standard, which is saying something. It's so stupid - and rude, contrary to your claims about yourself - it's not even worth the dignity of dismissing.
Like I say - self awareness is needed. Particularly among snobs who think they're brilliant because they went to the 'right' uni and got a degree despite being ignorant, and so rise effortlessly to the top where they sod everything up.
They need to learn they are rubbish, rather than say they are brilliant. Humble bragging isn't the problem in our society.
In your opinion virtually everybody is rubbish of course, apart from yourself!!
You say the same to me when you lose an argument and you always blame it on you being the only Tory here, even when the disagreement has nothing whatsoever to do with politics.
You are the classic of what @ydoethur describes. You have no self awareness whatsoever and can never accept you are ever wrong. You often for instance completely misunderstand posts and are unaware you have done so in particular when someone is being sarcastic or ironic.
I am certainly not going to concede to you and Ydoethur as you are amongst the rudest and most pompous posters on here, even Charles was never as self regarding as you 2 often are.
I did concede to Horse a point yesterday, as he is at least polite to me even if we differ politically
So you are not going to concede because we are rude and pompous even if we are right? OK that is logical.
Regarding being rude and pompous you might like to see how I and @ydoethur communicate and argue with others and see whether it is us or you who has a problem. I refer you to a joke post by Robert a few months ago who jokingly said he was going to ban 3 individuals for being too reasonable. I was one of those 3. As usual you don't have any self awareness. It is always others, never yourself.
I come here to discuss issues and politics. All too frequently it becomes personal with you and increasingly Ydoethur and that has been commented on by others.
There you again with your lack of self awareness.
a) You are often very rude to us, but you are unaware of it. It can cause a reaction back.
b) Our reaction to you is usually because of your complete lack of self awareness and your irrationality so we get utterly frustrated. Look at the discussions we have with others. None are the same. Why do you think that is? I know you think it is because you are the only Tory on the site but that is not true and often it is not about politics at all anyway - it is your go to defence and is wrong.
c) Commented on by others? Again an example of your lack of awareness. Have a look at any of these discussions and see. Look at the likes, look at the numbers agreeing with you or us. The only negatives we tend to get is with people suggesting we just give up as it is pointless and boring to them, with which I agree, so I am conflicted there. One of the problems in this area is you don't seem to get irony or sarcasm. Numerous times I have seen you like something which was actually not supporting your view but being ironic or sarcastic and you just don't get it.
Anyway lets stop as this is not a discussion on politics or an issue as you rightly say, but each of us analysing each other and neither of us are qualified to do that.
One point I would like to make though is I have gone out of my way over the last few weeks to 'like' or compliment you on a number of your posts with which I agree to build bridges.
I'm guessing this post will be a waste of time, but it was worth a shot. I'm guessing you are just going to respond with I'm being pompous again or it is because I am a liberal and you are a Tory. Neither are relevant.
Just leave it at that then
OK will do. Good response by the way. Sorry my reply was a bit rambling and was meant to be conciliatory, but probably didn't come over as such when I re-read it for which I apologise.
Another thought I had, and I know how much you like statistics, have you thought of looking at the 'likes' ratio for the 3 of us to see what PBers think of our respective posts?
I do hope you have already done that and done the calculation or it could backfire REALLY fast
This was not meant as a dig at anyone involved in this discussion, just an amused thought.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
No opinion formed on that yet, but even if true the less charm is a really important difference. It will mean he is more likely to be held accountable, given less leeway and better challenged by those around him. We would get better governance.
Thanks to everyone for the discussion and explanation about the Anglican/disestablishment/gay marriage stuff. I still don't understand most of it but at least I am a bit better informed.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
I think Boris could give quite good pre-prepared speeches. When it came to thinking on his feet and responding to questions, however, he could be fairly poor.
Are there any tub-thumping orators left in the Commons?
The one that springs to mind is Michael Gove closing the no confidence debate a few years ago.
I think Penny Mordaunt is pretty good. Compared to ealrier times there is a paucity of tyalent across the House.
The Tories are so obviously heading for a terrible defeat, the more interesting and live political question is, perhaps, how Starmer’s Labour will do in Scotland
That is much harder to call. The indyvoters provide a floor for Sturgeon… but she must be damaged by the Trans (sorry!) stuff
If Labour - as some sub samples suggest - go well over 30% of the Scottish vote they will surely start taking quite a few seats from the Nits. That will in turn have implications for Holyrood
Even in Scotland there cannot be more than 30% of the population as stupid as that.
What’s your sense of how the Trans shit is hurting Sturgeon? It looks pretty bad from the outside, but Scots politics are opaque, I readily admit. And Sturgeon has survived scandals - eg the Salmond Rape Affair - which would have utterly felled lesser politicos
When in doubt, assume that Sturgeon is going to be completely fine. Given the GRR didn't actually go through, I don't see how this will keep momentum (not to downplay the ongoing concerns of people like cyclefree). There is a Scottish Tavistock, which might lead to a few more stories.
I'm interested to see what she ends her political career with. The GE next year? The next Scottish elections (2026)?. Without an Indyref, she needs to find something big and positive to end with.
I'd suggest a new, highly protected Hebridean National Park. Or a radical land reform bill that grabs more of the big estates. A massive cycling revolution in our cities (we are actually quite densely populated up here, so would work)?
She will crash and burn or hang on till deposed and chased out with a whimper. Guaranteed to be seen as almost as bad as thatcher in the future. Be interesting to see if someone breaks ground and spills eth beans on all the shenanigans publicly.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
I listened to a speech by the former Bishop of Chelmsford, a couple of years ago, in which he said that the Church of England was duty-bound to attend to the needs of anyone in England. He was talking to a Citizens Advice Bureau regional general meeting and making te comparison that anybody could go to the CAB.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
I think Boris could give quite good pre-prepared speeches. When it came to thinking on his feet and responding to questions, however, he could be fairly poor.
Are there any tub-thumping orators left in the Commons?
The one that springs to mind is Michael Gove closing the no confidence debate a few years ago.
I think Penny Mordaunt is pretty good. Compared to ealrier times there is a paucity of tyalent across the House.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
Rubbish. The British problem is a total lack of self-awareness. Not humble bragging.
Imagine if, for example, Fred Goodwin, Mark James, Simon Case, Amanda Spielman, Suella Braverman or Liz Truss could understand their own abilities and weaknesses properly, so they could get jobs on their intellectual and moral level. What a boon that would be to the nation.
Americans don't mind failure and over ambition, as long as you try again.
You are just reinforcing the article, accept your station in life and don't brag as the British stereotype.
To be fair to Goodwin he did turn RBS from a small Scottish Bank to the biggest in the world at one point before the Crash
He was the one who crashed it through over expansion.
Your second sentence is even more nonsensical than your usual standard, which is saying something. It's so stupid - and rude, contrary to your claims about yourself - it's not even worth the dignity of dismissing.
Like I say - self awareness is needed. Particularly among snobs who think they're brilliant because they went to the 'right' uni and got a degree despite being ignorant, and so rise effortlessly to the top where they sod everything up.
They need to learn they are rubbish, rather than say they are brilliant. Humble bragging isn't the problem in our society.
In your opinion virtually everybody is rubbish of course, apart from yourself!!
You say the same to me when you lose an argument and you always blame it on you being the only Tory here, even when the disagreement has nothing whatsoever to do with politics.
You are the classic of what @ydoethur describes. You have no self awareness whatsoever and can never accept you are ever wrong. You often for instance completely misunderstand posts and are unaware you have done so in particular when someone is being sarcastic or ironic.
I am certainly not going to concede to you and Ydoethur as you are amongst the rudest and most pompous posters on here, even Charles was never as self regarding as you 2 often are.
I did concede to Horse a point yesterday, as he is at least polite to me even if we differ politically
So you are not going to concede because we are rude and pompous even if we are right? OK that is logical.
Regarding being rude and pompous you might like to see how I and @ydoethur communicate and argue with others and see whether it is us or you who has a problem. I refer you to a joke post by Robert a few months ago who jokingly said he was going to ban 3 individuals for being too reasonable. I was one of those 3. As usual you don't have any self awareness. It is always others, never yourself.
I come here to discuss issues and politics. All too frequently it becomes personal with you and increasingly Ydoethur and that has been commented on by others.
There you again with your lack of self awareness.
a) You are often very rude to us, but you are unaware of it. It can cause a reaction back.
b) Our reaction to you is usually because of your complete lack of self awareness and your irrationality so we get utterly frustrated. Look at the discussions we have with others. None are the same. Why do you think that is? I know you think it is because you are the only Tory on the site but that is not true and often it is not about politics at all anyway - it is your go to defence and is wrong.
c) Commented on by others? Again an example of your lack of awareness. Have a look at any of these discussions and see. Look at the likes, look at the numbers agreeing with you or us. The only negatives we tend to get is with people suggesting we just give up as it is pointless and boring to them, with which I agree, so I am conflicted there. One of the problems in this area is you don't seem to get irony or sarcasm. Numerous times I have seen you like something which was actually not supporting your view but being ironic or sarcastic and you just don't get it.
Anyway lets stop as this is not a discussion on politics or an issue as you rightly say, but each of us analysing each other and neither of us are qualified to do that.
One point I would like to make though is I have gone out of my way over the last few weeks to 'like' or compliment you on a number of your posts with which I agree to build bridges.
I'm guessing this post will be a waste of time, but it was worth a shot. I'm guessing you are just going to respond with I'm being pompous again or it is because I am a liberal and you are a Tory. Neither are relevant.
Just leave it at that then
OK will do. Good response by the way. Sorry my reply was a bit rambling and was meant to be conciliatory, but probably didn't come over as such when I re-read it for which I apologise.
Another thought I had, and I know how much you like statistics, have you thought of looking at the 'likes' ratio for the 3 of us to see what PBers think of our respective posts?
I do hope you have already done that and done the calculation or it could backfire REALLY fast
This was not meant as a dig at anyone involved in this discussion, just an amused thought.
Yes I did. I'm not that daft, although sometimes I might appear to be.
Although I do have another apology to make to @HYUFD . I accused him of not getting sarcasm and then I idiotically praised him for a good response without making it absolutely clear I was being genuine and not sarcastic. I think anyone would have been confused as to whether I was being genuine or not.
I was being genuine. I thought it was a classy way to respond to my post.
Ukrainian decathlete Volodymyr Androshchuk will not be representing his country at the Paris Olympics because he was just killed by the Russian armed forces. In other news, the IOC announces that Russian athletes are welcome in Paris.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
You know I am sure there are people in the CIA reading stuff like that and thinking 'bloody hell I wish we had the time and ability to do that'.
There is a persistent meme on the Hard Left that they are always being robbed of the massive election win they actually should have got.
Did you know about the 1992 conspiracy? There's also 1983 and 1987, if you want.
Some years ago, I was told, in all seriousness, that the votes in general elections were stored, so that Special Branch could count and identify those voting Communist and/or Sinn Fein.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
Indeed. Peppa Pig waves his curly tail in agreement.
His?
Have I been very confused about the sex of a cartoon pig for years or has PP gone* woke and embraced transgender characters?
*or was it always woke? I can't tell, but given Johnson's love for PP I assume not.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
I think Boris could give quite good pre-prepared speeches. When it came to thinking on his feet and responding to questions, however, he could be fairly poor.
Are there any tub-thumping orators left in the Commons?
The one that springs to mind is Michael Gove closing the no confidence debate a few years ago.
I think Penny Mordaunt is pretty good. Compared to ealrier times there is a paucity of tyalent across the House.
Penny Mordaunt stands out as reasonably articulate, it is what the rest aspire to.
That speech was the first thing I thought of. Even the Labour front bench were pissing themselves laughing at it...
Yes David Miliband seemed to appreciate it enormously. The longer version is actually worth a watch too. The absolutely masterful way he makes his points and deals with interventions is exceptional. Penny's take down of the SNP recently was witty but so much discourse in the Commons would be flattered by the description of yah boo politics.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Isn't there a risk that attempting to bankrupt people in public office becomes a sport?
No. Actions taken by a government will be defended by government lawyers. But this is a Parliamentary process - not a judicial one - and did not relate to the government's actions but his statements to the Commons about his personal behaviour not about the government's actions. There was no need for him to involve lawyers and if he chose to involve the he should have paid for them himself.
There are MPs who are bankrupted but we do not therefore say their legal bills are down to the taxpayer.
This is Boris and the current PM blurring the distinction between the government's interests and Boris's private ones. It is wrong and it should be stopped.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
You know I am sure there are people in the CIA reading stuff like that and thinking 'bloody hell I wish we had the time and ability to do that'.
There is a persistent meme on the Hard Left that they are always being robbed of the massive election win they actually should have got.
Did you know about the 1992 conspiracy? There's also 1983 and 1987, if you want.
Some years ago, I was told, in all seriousness, that the votes in general elections were stored, so that Special Branch could count and identify those voting Communist and/or Sinn Fein.
Ha… if they knew what really gets looked at {rubs nose} eh?
You know I am sure there are people in the CIA reading stuff like that and thinking 'bloody hell I wish we had the time and ability to do that'.
There is a persistent meme on the Hard Left that they are always being robbed of the massive election win they actually should have got.
Did you know about the 1992 conspiracy? There's also 1983 and 1987, if you want.
The Hard Right in the US seems to have been pretty comprehensively infected with this outlook. Also signs of possible outbreaks over here with cries of ‘they’ve robbed us of our Brexit!’ Just wait till PM Starmer find his spine over rapprochement with the EU..
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
I listened to a speech by the former Bishop of Chelmsford, a couple of years ago, in which he said that the Church of England was duty-bound to attend to the needs of anyone in England. He was talking to a Citizens Advice Bureau regional general meeting and making te comparison that anybody could go to the CAB.
I don't know about needs, but as established church they are legally bound to marry anyone who wants to be married in a CoE church, subject to the law. And at present it is illegal for a same sex couple to be married in church or by its ministers.
You know I am sure there are people in the CIA reading stuff like that and thinking 'bloody hell I wish we had the time and ability to do that'.
There is a persistent meme on the Hard Left that they are always being robbed of the massive election win they actually should have got.
Did you know about the 1992 conspiracy? There's also 1983 and 1987, if you want.
Some years ago, I was told, in all seriousness, that the votes in general elections were stored, so that Special Branch could count and identify those voting Communist and/or Sinn Fein.
Ha… if they knew what really gets looked at {rubs nose} eh?
In the late 1950s my dad was being considered for a posting in Moscow in the army. He was positively vetted and it was ascertained that his mother had once voted communist in a local election. This was true, she had returned from Canada homeless and a local councillor, who happened to be a communist, got her a council house so that her boys could come back and live with her. She voted for him as thanks. He didn't get to Moscow.
How widespread the monitoring of votes was in those days I don't know but the code on each ballot paper makes it at least theoretically possible.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
I think that is a bet @HYUFD should take seeing as you can only win at the end of time and he can win anytime no matter how unlikely.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
I think that is a bet @HYUFD should take seeing as you can only win at the end of time and he can win anytime no matter how unlikely.
Apologies for being a smart arse.
That £1b will be worth f all by the end of time anyway thanks to Liz Truss
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
I listened to a speech by the former Bishop of Chelmsford, a couple of years ago, in which he said that the Church of England was duty-bound to attend to the needs of anyone in England. He was talking to a Citizens Advice Bureau regional general meeting and making te comparison that anybody could go to the CAB.
I don't know about needs, but as established church they are legally bound to marry anyone who wants to be married in a CoE church, subject to the law. And at present it is illegal for a same sex couple to be married in church or by its ministers.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, now Archbishop of York has already said that unlike Welby he will bless homosexual marriages.
Unlike Welby Cottrell understands the Church of England is a national church with responsibility to everybody in its Parishes, not just evangelicals.
Unlike evangelical Welby and Holy Trinity Brompton liberal Catholic Cottrell also understands the Anglican Communion is not the Roman Catholic Church. What applies in Nigeria and Uganda does not also have to apply in England and the Western Anglican churches!
Ukrainian decathlete Volodymyr Androshchuk will not be representing his country at the Paris Olympics because he was just killed by the Russian armed forces. In other news, the IOC announces that Russian athletes are welcome in Paris.
I can't believe the IOC are going to allow Russian and Belarussian athletes compete, even under a neutral flag. It's not just the war; it's the continuous and flagrant breaking of doping rules as well.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
If Labour win the next general election the odds are they will try if the Church of England has not approved allowing homosexual marriages in its churches by then.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
I think that is a bet @HYUFD should take seeing as you can only win at the end of time and he can win anytime no matter how unlikely.
Apologies for being a smart arse.
That £1b will be worth f all by the end of time anyway thanks to Liz Truss
He could go out with a big bang (or have I got that the wrong way around)
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Ukraine needs more artillery and airpower. In fact, it needs more of everything.
Pretty much confirms the account on Reddit from that Canadian mercenary who killed 15 people on Xmas Day in Bakhmut. LOL. 🎅🎄🎁.
The Musicians send a small squad of 5-8 guys forward. AFU lights them up. Russians shell the AFU position. Repeat until the AFU position is abandoned or just totally destroyed. Russians advance 500m and do it again.
It's a fairly hideous way to prosecute a war; something going back 100 years and not a 'modern' way of fighting. But it seems to work, for a narrow enough definition of 'work'. As long as Russia has the artillery, that is (I don't think they'd run out of men.)
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
It is vaguely but not too complex. While the CoE remains the established church in England Statute law needs to reflect Canon Law. There is absolutely no way that Parliament could modify Canon Law itself there is simply no mechanism.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
In the UK Crown in Parliament is sovereign, even over Church of England canon law.
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
If you want we can have a bet of £1,000,000,000 that Parliament, as in a political party in the Commons, will never attempt to change Canon Law.
If Labour win the next general election the odds are they will try if the Church of England has not approved allowing homosexual marriages in its churches by then.
I am not betting on that though
Go on, it is a free bet. Might want to check if Topping is good for a billion though.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Either you have integrity, or you don't. Once you've decided its OK to routinely lie for the "greater good", as Starmer does, then you've crossed that threshold and have abandoned your integrity and it becomes easier and easier to twist whatever you want to be "the greater good".
Starmer is every bit as dishonest as Boris Johnson. The fact its for "the greater good" may make it better in your eyes, but integrity matters.
The Archbishop of Canterbury told a group of MPs that he would rather see the Church of England lose its status as an established church than risk a global organisation fracturing over clashes on gay marriage, The Times understands.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is said to have made the comment at a private meeting with MPs in Westminster this week.
How does that work? I don't see the causal link - but then I don't know much about the relationship between the the CofE and the wider worldwide Anglican community. How does disestablishment (which would be a good thing in its own right) stop a fracture over gay marriage? And as I understood it the wider Anglican community is now quite anti-gay marriage because of the domination of African churches. So does unity mean the CofE becomes anti gay marriage? How is that a good thing?
He evidently believes that gay marriage is not something he will die in a ditch for/fracture the global anglican community. As it stands, statute law follows canon law on this hence it is illegal (in statute law) for same sex marriage to be carried out in a CoE church or by its ministers. That is because as the established church everyone has a legal right to be married in a CoE church as long as they abide by the CoE's rules.
If the CoE were to disestablish then there would no longer be the legal right to be married in a CoE church (or by a CoE minister, nota bene @HYUFD).
So Welby appears to be saying that he would rather the CoE disestablishes and takes its place with all the other religions in the UK than agree to same sex marriage.
The schism caused by permitting gay marriage would destroy the church of England as we know it.
There is a complex relationship between Church and State, including law and Parliament.
General Synod is sometimes styled as the third chamber of Parliament, which is not fully justified yet law changes passed by General Synod require approval in Parliament - normally on the nod by convention. But presumably that convention could be laid aside in extremis and Parliament could modify Canon Law itself. That would be a crisis .
There are also some things they do better than Parliament, such as debating as one group before voting by houses of Clergy, Laity, Episcopacy.
Cameron tickled it when he rushed Gay Marriage through without addressing a lot of the implications, but introduced a fairly crude exception rather than sweat the detail.
There's also the separate planning system for major denominations, which also extends to the Methodist Church, Baptist Union etc.
I haven't visited the issue for a few years, but I was surprised how the CofE was standing back from Gay Marriage in Church, or at least something less formal like Blessings after a ceremony elsewhere, with their recent report; I was expecting more movement, observing how people from the evangelical wing I have known for 30+ years have been in general liberalising their views over time.
I listened to a speech by the former Bishop of Chelmsford, a couple of years ago, in which he said that the Church of England was duty-bound to attend to the needs of anyone in England. He was talking to a Citizens Advice Bureau regional general meeting and making te comparison that anybody could go to the CAB.
I don't know about needs, but as established church they are legally bound to marry anyone who wants to be married in a CoE church, subject to the law. And at present it is illegal for a same sex couple to be married in church or by its ministers.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, now Archbishop of York has already said that unlike Welby he will bless homosexual marriages.
Unlike Welby Cottrell understands the Church of England is a national church with responsibility to everybody in its Parishes, not just evangelicals.
Unlike evangelical Welby and Holy Trinity Brompton liberal Catholic Cottrell also understands the Anglican Communion is not the Roman Catholic Church. What applies in Nigeria and Uganda does not also have to apply in England and the Western Anglican churches!
It wasn’t that Bishop of Chelmsford; a predecessor.
Ukrainian decathlete Volodymyr Androshchuk will not be representing his country at the Paris Olympics because he was just killed by the Russian armed forces. In other news, the IOC announces that Russian athletes are welcome in Paris.
I can't believe the IOC are going to allow Russian and Belarussian athletes compete, even under a neutral flag. It's not just the war; it's the continuous and flagrant breaking of doping rules as well.
Ukraine needs more artillery and airpower. In fact, it needs more of everything.
Pretty much confirms the account on Reddit from that Canadian mercenary who killed 15 people on Xmas Day in Bakhmut. LOL. 🎅🎄🎁.
The Musicians send a small squad of 5-8 guys forward. AFU lights them up. Russians shell the AFU position. Repeat until the AFU position is abandoned or just totally destroyed. Russians advance 500m and do it again.
It's a fairly hideous way to prosecute a war; something going back 100 years and not a 'modern' way of fighting. But it seems to work, for a narrow enough definition of 'work'. As long as Russia has the artillery, that is (I don't think they'd run out of men.)
They've reportedly just short of 300k in Ukraine, so they're certainly not going to run out locally. But it might again become a war of manoeuvre in the next month.
"'It's like a zombie movie': Wagner recruits 'are pumped full of drugs that enable them to keep fighting until they bleed out, even when hit by machineguns'"
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
The energy market seems a bit broken. Adam Smith himself warned of the power of corporations, and urged Governments to act to break up monopolies. I think a well-functioning market doesn't allow vast profits in the long term, because it's too competitive.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Ukraine needs more artillery and airpower. In fact, it needs more of everything.
Pretty much confirms the account on Reddit from that Canadian mercenary who killed 15 people on Xmas Day in Bakhmut. LOL. 🎅🎄🎁.
The Musicians send a small squad of 5-8 guys forward. AFU lights them up. Russians shell the AFU position. Repeat until the AFU position is abandoned or just totally destroyed. Russians advance 500m and do it again.
It's a fairly hideous way to prosecute a war; something going back 100 years and not a 'modern' way of fighting. But it seems to work, for a narrow enough definition of 'work'. As long as Russia has the artillery, that is (I don't think they'd run out of men.)
The problem is that it only "works" if your artillery has a longer range and better logistics than the enemy artillery.
Neither is the case anymore, which is why Russia is losing the war and has been retreating more ground than they lose despite DuraAces protestations to the contrary.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
I think Boris could give quite good pre-prepared speeches. When it came to thinking on his feet and responding to questions, however, he could be fairly poor.
Are there any tub-thumping orators left in the Commons?
The one that springs to mind is Michael Gove closing the no confidence debate a few years ago.
I think Penny Mordaunt is pretty good. Compared to ealrier times there is a paucity of tyalent across the House.
Penny Mordaunt stands out as reasonably articulate, it is what the rest aspire to.
The key line in Hague’s speech being “imagine the role being filled by someone of the political skills of our previous Prime Minister [Blair]…..that certainly never came to pass!
Reposting - a reminder of the Blair Brown feud after Blair had left office:
“Gordon Brown was so pissed off that Tony Blair was cavorting around the world and expecting the red carpet treatment, he ordered a directive.”@JonSopel shares his insider knowledge of the former Labour PMs. [VIDEO] https://twitter.com/TheNewsAgents/status/1620855878755799040
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
How long can he survive with his "I wasn't backed by Kolomoisky" line, when everyone knows he was?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Depending upon what that family was at the time!
Probably the family yet to be found and conceived.....
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
It made more sense than the pile of bovine manure you wrote.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
His efforts in your direction are entirely pro bono.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Either you have integrity, or you don't. Once you've decided its OK to routinely lie for the "greater good", as Starmer does, then you've crossed that threshold and have abandoned your integrity and it becomes easier and easier to twist whatever you want to be "the greater good".
Starmer is every bit as dishonest as Boris Johnson. The fact its for "the greater good" may make it better in your eyes, but integrity matters.
Can you give an example of a politician of unsullied and consistent integrity?
It now seems to be the right’s soothing ointment when their own brand of politics is a binfire, ‘Your guy is just as bad as ours!’ Whatever gets you through the night.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
As if life wasn’t bleak enough already. How depressing.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
If the Ukraine War keeps going rates could keep rising for years.
Best to lock in fixed rate mortgages now therefore if looking to buy, maybe switching back to a variable rate in 5 years time
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
As that "little man" said: " “Do you still think that we are ‘one nation?’ Do you still think that you can scare us, break us, make us make concessions?”
“You really did not understand anything? Don't understand who we are? What are we for? What are we talking about?”
“Read my lips: Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you? Without you.”
“Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as scary and deadly for us as your ‘friendship and brotherhood, But history will put everything in its place. And we will be with gas, light, water and food ... and WITHOUT you!”
If there is any leader in the world today who better epitomises the very heart of his nation he has slipped my mind.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Your description could be applied to Thatcher.
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Either you have integrity, or you don't. Once you've decided its OK to routinely lie for the "greater good", as Starmer does, then you've crossed that threshold and have abandoned your integrity and it becomes easier and easier to twist whatever you want to be "the greater good".
Starmer is every bit as dishonest as Boris Johnson. The fact its for "the greater good" may make it better in your eyes, but integrity matters.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
Whilst you are clearly a person willing to post complete garbage (that most of us will just ignore) on a website for a few roubles...
And if the bullshit DavidL posted is the best you have you and your Russian mates are utterly screwed long term.
I can see no justification for taxpayers paying for Johnson's legal bills over this.
Boris will be Boris. He's special.
The irony of all this negativity swirling around Johnson is the loser seems to be Sunak, and Johnson's stock rises amongst those who will vote to replace Sunak with Johnson. Strange days indeed.
I am increasingly convinced that Boris Johnson entered into a pact with Satan. It is the only explanation that makes sense.
More likely he is a selfish, manipulative, narcissistic twat with a fair amount of the brand of charm that works well on key sections of British high society.
Yes, but I think this could apply to Starmer as well (with less charm). They are both towards the upper end of the psychopath traits scale IMO.
I’m very far from a Starmer fan but that interpretation is verging on the deranged.
He's a lawyer for a start. Second highest career for psychopaths (after CEO). He's utterly ruthless, merciless and manipulative. And I think his lie-count (inc to his own left wing) at least rivals Johnson's .
That's not bad for a start.
Satan and Starmer, they almost sound the same. And of course Johnson and Jesus start with the same letter.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
They are largely making profits abroad - and bringing the profits here. The items they are writing off against tax - such as North Sea decommissioning are things that various UK governments have explicitly stated are tax write-offs.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Those with a mortgage however have to make higher mortgage repayments every time rates rise if not on a fixed rate
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
Good effort, especially if you are only being paid in roubles.
Well argued, David. And congratulations to the button clicking "likers" too.
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
What's with the 'a'? Did someone leave without providing log-in details? The non-'a' seems not to be banned. Should we expect a 'b'? A 'c'? Which is better? Will there be a DJ42 as a significant upgrade?
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Inflation is bad as it erodes the value of pay, pensions and savings
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Those with a mortgage however have to make higher mortgage repayments every time rates rise if not on a fixed rate
Aren't most people on fixed rate mortgages - the only people likely to be on variable rates will have either mortgages so small that the cost of fixing them makes little sense or those whose fixed rate have expired since Truss revealed the true state of things and have been waiting for fixed rate mortgage rates to decrease a bit
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Those with a mortgage however have to make higher mortgage repayments every time rates rise if not on a fixed rate
No shit Sherlock.
Though if there's a healthy dose of inflation then wages should be going up too, while the price of the property purchase was locked in years ago while wages were lower, so even then a higher percentage of a lower (in real terms) number while uncomfortable is not the end of the world.
Better than people seeing house prices being unaffordable, rent as a result shooting up in real terms further and further consistently while houses are out of reach and wages are stagnant as has happened since the early New Labour years onwards.
Speaking as someone who completed his house purchase in December, I really hope I bought at the very peak of the market and that sort of insane house price multiple is never seen again. I don't care if I "lose out" by seeing the value of my property fall in real terms, even if it leads to negative equity, I have my own home, there's millions of others who are struggling far more.
There is nothing really Sunak can do in the short term to improve Tory polling but I am sure he knows that and is playing the longer game. A lot can change in two years so he’s clearly better off spending a year getting the public finances in a solid position and then start a raft of targeted tax cuts, not at the wealthy, but in a way where the most people who are waverers benefit and see a real increase in their pocket.
He needs to then push a big investment and growth drive by reverting to the plan of huge corp tax offsets for investment and even look into some form of “British Infrastructure Investment Bonds” (think War Bonds) where the money raised is hypothecated purely for big infrastructure projects mixed between state/council projects and grants to enterprises - pick winners.
Cheaper than PFI but if coupon is attractive enough after solid sensible financial management then will be attractive.
By having shown markets and the world that he is sensible and “sound money” he will have built up trust with them and should be able to get tax changes etc through without a Truss style market attack.
His pitch would need to be along the lines of “I know it’s been very tough for the country these last few years but everyone knuckled down and took a lot of pain so I’m now able to reward the sacrifice by ensuring you keep more of your money but also we’ve shown we can live within our means and so it’s time to give your communities the benefits of that and so our investment bonds will be building your needed new roads, hospitals blah blah blah”.
If he’s able to make tax cuts, go for growth and investment then he has the added bonus of being able to lance the boil of a lot of the party nutters and be able to start shedding them which will help improve the perception of the tories.
Also two years is a long time where black swans will likely happen - worst for Labour and best for Tories would be (and I’m not wishing it on him) Star er having to step down for health reasons and then a Labour gunfight with Rayner taking over who I really believe would put off a lot of wavering former Tory voters.
Having written the above it’s clearly bollocks and it will be a Labour majority.
The biggest of the black swans would appear to be the Ukr-Rus conflict.
That has quite a wide range of possible outcomes and may impact on the GE 2024 in ways hard to predict.
A Ukrainian win of any sorts could be channeled by Johnson as a personal Churchillian victory. It could well be a Falklands Factor.
I noted from Nick Ferrari this morning that Johnson is on manouvres. They were interviewing Eddie Lister who was anticipating a good chance of a Johnson return. Johnson, he claims is the greatest orator in the HoC (which I would refute) and his Prime Ministerial campaigning brilliance (I can't discount that) could ensure the Tories are rewarded.
If Johnson really is "the greatest orator in the House of Commons", it is a sad lookout for the current state of the HoC. He demonstrated himself to be really quite feeble in that regard.
But I appreciate that the narrative and the reality don't have to match if you just repeat the lie often enough.
I think Boris could give quite good pre-prepared speeches. When it came to thinking on his feet and responding to questions, however, he could be fairly poor.
Are there any tub-thumping orators left in the Commons?
The one that springs to mind is Michael Gove closing the no confidence debate a few years ago.
I think Penny Mordaunt is pretty good. Compared to ealrier times there is a paucity of tyalent across the House.
Penny Mordaunt stands out as reasonably articulate, it is what the rest aspire to.
The key line in Hague’s speech being “imagine the role being filled by someone of the political skills of our previous Prime Minister [Blair]…..that certainly never came to pass!
Reposting - a reminder of the Blair Brown feud after Blair had left office:
“Gordon Brown was so pissed off that Tony Blair was cavorting around the world and expecting the red carpet treatment, he ordered a directive.”@JonSopel shares his insider knowledge of the former Labour PMs. [VIDEO] https://twitter.com/TheNewsAgents/status/1620855878755799040
It will come though, probably in the next crisis when the utter ineptitude of the likes of Ursula von der Leyen is no longer tolerable. Imagine what Delors would have done with that position.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Those with a mortgage however have to make higher mortgage repayments every time rates rise if not on a fixed rate
No shit Sherlock.
Though if there's a healthy dose of inflation then wages should be going up too, while the price of the property purchase was locked in years ago while wages were lower, so even then a higher percentage of a lower (in real terms) number while uncomfortable is not the end of the world.
Better than people seeing house prices being unaffordable, rent as a result shooting up in real terms further and further consistently while houses are out of reach and wages are stagnant as has happened since the early New Labour years onwards.
Speaking as someone who completed his house purchase in December, I really hope I bought at the very peak of the market and that sort of insane house price multiple is never seen again. I don't care if I "lose out" by seeing the value of my property fall in real terms, even if it leads to negative equity, I have my own home, there's millions of others who are struggling far more.
Average wages are going up by less than inflation, hence the strikes
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Is it from "The Economy" that is subject to tax in the UK? Or is it a worldwide number?
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
Thanks for the reply. Are you saying, then, that any amount of profit is acceptable if appropriate taxes are paid? That's my question really, not a question about the quality of the Guardian's reporting.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Some very odd phrasing there - confirming that you really aren't in the UK or know anything about UK politics.
Thanks for confirming what was obvious earlier though (that you are today's hapless Russian stooge - soon to be discovered to be useless and sent sans weapon to a Ukranian battle field).
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
Shell is a global company, not sure but for back of envelope purposes lets imagine it operates in a third of the world so serves about 2.5bn people, and is making an average of £12 per year per person in an exceptional year caused by a major war.
From an economic perspective I would be more concerned about a local housing developer that might be making many thousands of pounds per person on a persistent basis for example but whose profits might only be £30m.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
Shell derives around 5% of its revenue from its UK activities, I think ? Not much we can do about the rest of it.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
Shell has a revenue of £300 billion. This is a much smaller profit ratio than Apple runs at.
I think that is the BoE finally caught up with the surge in inflation. There will probably be another couple of 0.25% increases but my guess is that is the heavy lifting done. These interest rate increases were, of course, the main reason that the IMF were forecasting lower growth in the UK than elsewhere.
Yes indeed interest rates likely to peak at 4.5% Spring 2023 and stay around there for rest of 2023.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
Good. A dose of healthy inflation is a good thing, allowing sticky prices to adjust without going negative, as opposed to rampant inflation or no inflation/deflation.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
Inflation is bad as it erodes the value of pay, pensions and savings
Stable prices are good 👍
But we have we never had stable prices. The only question is where the inflation was going - across all of the economy or only a part of it. If a house was worth the same in real terms today as it was in 1997 then maybe you could say we had relatively stable inflatio , but we have had rampant inflation consistently far, far, far higher than 4%
Which yes eroded pay which is why house price to earnings ratios that were once 3 are now 7+ ... pay has halved versus prices in real terms. That's terrible.
We need balanced moderate inflation not rampant inflation. We need to reverse the damage of the past two decades of rampant inflation too.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
Shell is a global company, not sure but for back of envelope purposes lets imagine it operates in a third of the world so serves about 2.5bn people, and is making an average of £12 per year per person in an exceptional year caused by a major war.
From an economic perspective I would be more concerned about a local housing developer that might be making many thousands of pounds per person on a persistent basis for example but whose profits might only be £30m.
Back to betting, I think there's around an 80% chance of the Republican nominee being either Trump or DeSantis. A narrowed field increases the chances for the latter.
“I would’ve told you last fall that there would be five senators in the race,” Ward Baker, a Republican strategist, told me, recalling a presentation he put together for lawmakers and donors projecting at least a double-digit sized group of contenders.
Now, Baker and other well-connected Republicans believe the ultimate field may be closer to seven or eight serious candidates with an even smaller number still standing by the time the first votes are cast in the kickoff states a year from now....
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
They are largely making profits abroad - and bringing the profits here. The items they are writing off against tax - such as North Sea decommissioning are things that various UK governments have explicitly stated are tax write-offs.
The question was whether the profits are indefensible rather than complying with our tax law. Yes they comply with tax laws but that does not answer the question.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
But it's not coming from the economy, its global, and much of it is coming INTO the economy not out of it, from abroad.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
Do you see any limit on the level of profits you don't mind them making? I'll readily admit, £30bn doesn't feel very different to £30m on an emotional level, even though intellectually I know it is. But it feels big enough to start distorting the economy in an unhealthy way.
Shell derives around 5% of its revenue from its UK activities, I think ? Not much we can do about the rest of it.
Indeed - they are doing the reverse of the "Citizens of nowhere" thing. They are bringing the money onshore.
Those disliking the fact that they are paying low amounts of tax should say which write-offs for tax they want to stop.
All you free marketeers on here...do you think there is any level of profit-taking from the economy that is 'too much'? If so, is £32.2bn too much? If so, what should be done about it?
FWIW, I recognise the risks of stepping in to regulate this further. But I also see the risks and distortion effects of profits this size, particularly in the way it funnels money from the economy as a whole into the pockets of a smaller group of richer individuals, who are then able to distort markets such as the housing market in London, because of their excess wealth.
Yes, I know institutional investors, pension funds etc are a thing and profits like this can be good for them, and I'm not dismissing that angle, I just don't think it's the whole story.
Apologies for re-posting, but can I ask this again? I'm genuinely interested in whether people would defend Shell's profits. I feel as though we are rapidly reaching the point where these sorts of numbers are becoming indefensible, but I would welcome being challenged on it.
Dont mind them making the profits. Do mind them paying zero corporation tax and in the case of windfall gains from an illegal war they should definitely face windfall taxes.
They are largely making profits abroad - and bringing the profits here. The items they are writing off against tax - such as North Sea decommissioning are things that various UK governments have explicitly stated are tax write-offs.
The question was whether the profits are indefensible rather than complying with our tax law. Yes they comply with tax laws but that does not answer the question.
The profits are largely occurring in other countries. Should we make Shell send the money back?
Comments
Finally, I realised it is a feature, not a bug.
https://twitter.com/habibi_uk/status/1621078099906682881
This was not meant as a dig at anyone involved in this discussion, just an amused thought.
For SSM the CoE needs to want to hold them and then change Canon Law to reflect that. Statute Law would then be changed accordingly.
Penny Mordaunt stands out as reasonably articulate, it is what the rest aspire to.
At least he blamed the CIA, and not another group. Oh, and Brand should've been wearing a tinfoil hat as well...
Did you know about the 1992 conspiracy? There's also 1983 and 1987, if you want.
Overview of Russian equipment losses added on 01/02/2023
https://twitter.com/Rebel44CZ/status/1620907463653605387
And both sides are reported as "gearing up for a major offensive".
The Church of England was after all set up in the first place by the King of England to be the established Church, not a movement of Christians
Although I do have another apology to make to @HYUFD . I accused him of not getting sarcasm and then I idiotically praised him for a good response without making it absolutely clear I was being genuine and not sarcastic. I think anyone would have been confused as to whether I was being genuine or not.
I was being genuine. I thought it was a classy way to respond to my post.
https://twitter.com/timothydsnyder/status/1620814342118842368
Have I been very confused about the sex of a cartoon pig for years or has PP gone* woke and embraced transgender characters?
*or was it always woke? I can't tell, but given Johnson's love for PP I assume not.
There are MPs who are bankrupted but we do not therefore say their legal bills are down to the taxpayer.
This is Boris and the current PM blurring the distinction between the government's interests and Boris's private ones. It is wrong and it should be stopped.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/11/22/moving-the-goalposts/
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/09/02/this-is-the-spin-now-for-some-questions/
That's not bad for a start.
Everyone knows it was the Masons who did it.
How widespread the monitoring of votes was in those days I don't know but the code on each ballot paper makes it at least theoretically possible.
Apologies for being a smart arse.
Unlike Welby Cottrell understands the Church of England is a national church with responsibility to everybody in its Parishes, not just evangelicals.
Unlike evangelical Welby and Holy Trinity Brompton liberal Catholic Cottrell also understands the Anglican Communion is not the Roman Catholic Church. What applies in Nigeria and Uganda does not also have to apply in England and the Western Anglican churches!
I am not betting on that though
My problem with Starmer is the milquetoast hypocrisy and running a mile from any principle that might frighten the voters, yet I’d accept currently that he thinks he’s doing this for greater good of the UK. Of course the longer one equivocates over what one believes the easier it is to forget what that actually is.
Johnson was only in it for the greater good of Johnson, and possibly the Johnson family.
Just what we savers need.
Starmer is every bit as dishonest as Boris Johnson. The fact its for "the greater good" may make it better in your eyes, but integrity matters.
But it might again become a war of manoeuvre in the next month.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11704973/Wagner-recruits-pumped-drugs-enable-fighting-Ukrainian-soldier-says.html
Neither is the case anymore, which is why Russia is losing the war and has been retreating more ground than they lose despite DuraAces protestations to the contrary.
Reposting - a reminder of the Blair Brown feud after Blair had left office:
“Gordon Brown was so pissed off that Tony Blair was cavorting around the world and expecting the red carpet treatment, he ordered a directive.”@JonSopel shares his insider knowledge of the former Labour PMs.
[VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/TheNewsAgents/status/1620855878755799040
The Torygraph, last night: "Mansion of ‘warlord oligarch’ who ‘helped Zelensky get elected’ raided by security agency".
And the strapline: "Ihor Kolomoisky is credited with helping Volodymyr Zelensky to power, but the Ukrainian president denies being supported by the media tycoon". (Emphasis added.)
He denies it? Does he, indeed.
The Atlantic Council in 2019 asked a question about Zelensky : "Servant of the people or servant of the oligarchs?".
Only of the people, the people. Always the people. Am I getting this right?
It's interesting that in 2023 the Torygraph are now calling Kolomoisky a "warlord". Guess what war activity this refers to. Kolomoisky did indeed fund paramilitary forces to fight against the Donetsk and Luhansk republics after they declared independence from Ukraine after referendums in 2014. See for example this piece, which refers to Kolomoisky's "private army". He funded the neo-Nazi Azov battalion (before they became regularised as a regiment) and others.
Kolomoisky hasn't been referred to in western media as a "warlord" much recently, though, especially since 2022. And now he's getting this richly-deserved label once again.
That means something.
How long has his little man Zelensky got?
How long can he survive with his "I wasn't backed by Kolomoisky" line, when everyone knows he was?
Could "F*** the territories, f*** Kolomoisky, f*** Zelensky, f*** the EU and US" be an idea of growing appeal in Ukraine, a country that has lost maybe 100000 of its young men to senseless slaughter in the drive to raise the yellow and blue flag again over every piece of all six territories?
You're the one who gets paid to argue other people's positions regardless of what you think of them, mate. You're a lawyer. Not everyone's of that type. Interesting profile pic you've got too. Clearly a man of great depth.
I am now projecting CPI 4% to 5% Dec 2023. Bank may leave rates at around 4% for a while to try to squeeze CPI towards 2% in 2024 although this level of CPI may be difficult to achieve.
It now seems to be the right’s soothing ointment when their own brand of politics is a binfire, ‘Your guy is just as bad as ours!’
Whatever gets you through the night.
Best to lock in fixed rate mortgages now therefore if looking to buy, maybe switching back to a variable rate in 5 years time
I note that the Guardian does not tell us, nor do they explain how much tax is paid already.
I'd say they are trying to maintain the outrage, complete with rantaquotes from Ed Davey and Greenpeace.
Sorry, but I'd say that is the permatrolling type of commentary, as when for example Professor Murphy was frothing away years ago about how banks were avoiding tax, when the profit had been absorbed by losses from previous years.
" “Do you still think that we are ‘one nation?’ Do you still think that you can scare us, break us, make us make concessions?”
“You really did not understand anything? Don't understand who we are? What are we for? What are we talking about?”
“Read my lips: Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you? Without you.”
“Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as scary and deadly for us as your ‘friendship and brotherhood, But history will put everything in its place. And we will be with gas, light, water and food ... and WITHOUT you!”
If there is any leader in the world today who better epitomises the very heart of his nation he has slipped my mind.
Yarp.
That's the problem we've had in recent years has been rampant inflation in parts of the economy, but virtually-zero CPI, which has completely distorted the economy.
A few years of moderate CPI inflation around the 4-5% mark, and declining house prices, will do wonders for rebalancing the economy and making life more affordable for those working for a living rather than allowing rentiers to extract all the wealth of the economy.
And if the bullshit DavidL posted is the best you have you and your Russian mates are utterly screwed long term.
"I think they are stuck with (Sunak) until Starmer gets his post election call from the Palace."
I don't. If Sunak had his feet planted solidly in his position as party leader he'd have appointed a new party chairman by now. Unprecedented, how long it's taking. (That's unless there was a case before 1944.)
Even if the only consideration were what I'm hearing about Zahawi, it'd be hard to picture an apparently weak leader such as Sunak staying in office for long.
Stable prices are good 👍
Though if there's a healthy dose of inflation then wages should be going up too, while the price of the property purchase was locked in years ago while wages were lower, so even then a higher percentage of a lower (in real terms) number while uncomfortable is not the end of the world.
Better than people seeing house prices being unaffordable, rent as a result shooting up in real terms further and further consistently while houses are out of reach and wages are stagnant as has happened since the early New Labour years onwards.
Speaking as someone who completed his house purchase in December, I really hope I bought at the very peak of the market and that sort of insane house price multiple is never seen again. I don't care if I "lose out" by seeing the value of my property fall in real terms, even if it leads to negative equity, I have my own home, there's millions of others who are struggling far more.
In my view there is a (pretty high) limit to levels of acceptable profit, not least because profits of that size suggest a market that is captured in an unhealthy way. I think this might be an example of that limit being breached, regardless of where the profit has been garnered globally.
Thanks for confirming what was obvious earlier though (that you are today's hapless Russian stooge - soon to be discovered to be useless and sent sans weapon to a Ukranian battle field).
From an economic perspective I would be more concerned about a local housing developer that might be making many thousands of pounds per person on a persistent basis for example but whose profits might only be £30m.
Not much we can do about the rest of it.
Which yes eroded pay which is why house price to earnings ratios that were once 3 are now 7+ ... pay has halved versus prices in real terms. That's terrible.
We need balanced moderate inflation not rampant inflation. We need to reverse the damage of the past two decades of rampant inflation too.
The Cold Calculus Behind the Shrinking GOP Presidential Field
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/02/shrinking-field-2024-republican-presidential-candidates-00080752
...For all the preemptive Republican panic about a 2016 replay, and Trump claiming the nomination again thanks to a fractured opposition, the 2024 GOP field is shaping up to be smaller than expected.
“I would’ve told you last fall that there would be five senators in the race,” Ward Baker, a Republican strategist, told me, recalling a presentation he put together for lawmakers and donors projecting at least a double-digit sized group of contenders.
Now, Baker and other well-connected Republicans believe the ultimate field may be closer to seven or eight serious candidates with an even smaller number still standing by the time the first votes are cast in the kickoff states a year from now....
So no, that should not be limited.
Those disliking the fact that they are paying low amounts of tax should say which write-offs for tax they want to stop.