This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I'm slow to catch-up on the West Lancashire by-election news but I'm not sure a 10.5% swing points at a Labour landslide, let alone a Tory wipeout. And turnout was woeful.
There were bigger swings against Labour in the 2005-2010 Parliament in a variety of by-elections, including Crewe & Nantwich, Norwich North, Sedgefield, and Glasgow East.
I think an awful lot turns on whether the Conservatives can rally their base.
Which is the plan imo. A core vote strategy aimed not at winning but on coming a solid second. That way you avoid a gamechanging collapse, protect your Big Two status, and it's only a matter of time before you get back in again. Could be quite a long time, since certain things and people need to be faced and dealt with, but what's a decade or so in the long run of things. Question is will it work? What does True Blue + Hard Brexit add up to? Is it enough? I don't know.
Its absolutely the plan.
When you can't win, you play De-fence.
It's what Hague did in 2001 and I suspect what Rishi will do too. He will get reamed for it on here and in the chatterati press, with most supporters keeping their heads down, but it's how he ensures he gets some votes (rather than none at all) and the Conservative Party lives to fight another day.
Unless RefUK overtakes the Tories as the main party of the right, under FPTP the Conservatives will always live to fight another day
This is what I'm driving it. For this GE - and I mean just this one - it's more important for you guys to not leak to the right than slug it out for the middle. Don't you agree?
Yes on the whole, given the middle will almost certainly still vote Labour anyway along with the left, unlike 2019, while some on the right are still deciding between Tory or RefUK
59, 79 and 140 - the positions of Chester, Lancashire West and Stretford & Urmiston on the list of Labour marginal seats. East Ham (my constituency) sits at 188 - it's the 15th safest Labour seat in the country based on the 2019 GE results.
The swing in Chester was 13.7% (turnout 41%), in Lancashire West it was 10.6% (turnout 31%) and in Stretford & Urmiston 10.5% on a 26% turnout.
So what can we see? The most marginal seat and the largest turnout gets the biggest swing.
Given normal election turnouts are 30-40 % higher than most GEs in these safe seats, there's an argument perhaps these results aren't as "bad" for Labour as some are suggesting.
I'm slow to catch-up on the West Lancashire by-election news but I'm not sure a 10.5% swing points at a Labour landslide, let alone a Tory wipeout. And turnout was woeful.
There were bigger swings against Labour in the 2005-2010 Parliament in a variety of by-elections, including Crewe & Nantwich, Norwich North, Sedgefield, and Glasgow East.
I think an awful lot turns on whether the Conservatives can rally their base.
But as Mike makes clear in the thread header it is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from a Labour victory in a very safe Labour seat. Claiming the swing is not big enough is not really valid when Labour already had over 50% of the vote.
Very safe? The result was Lab 52%, Con 36% in 2019.
The herd simply can't handle the argument.
Hence the defensive likes for those posts they think are refuting it.
I wouldn't be so rude as to call you and Andy "the herd", but if you insist.
Of course we have now had a black swan intervention from Lee Anderson, so go back to your constituencies and prepare for a further five years of Conservative Government.
I'm slow to catch-up on the West Lancashire by-election news but I'm not sure a 10.5% swing points at a Labour landslide, let alone a Tory wipeout. And turnout was woeful.
There were bigger swings against Labour in the 2005-2010 Parliament in a variety of by-elections, including Crewe & Nantwich, Norwich North, Sedgefield, and Glasgow East.
I think an awful lot turns on whether the Conservatives can rally their base.
Much more difficult to get a 10% swing when you already have over 50% of the vote, mind.
I'm not sure that argument totally washes though.
Labour got barely half of the votes they got in the same seat in 2019. Where were the other half plus all the new converts?
Hmm.
Yes but. Comparable seats in the 2005-10 Parliament are not the ones you quote, but Conservative held ones.
OK, I've now given a few examples from the 1992-1997 parliament.
I now expect to be told those are all different too because Reasons.
Not at all. We are having a civilised, evidenced disagreement about the import of a minor by election. At least to my mind. Who is correct will only come out in time.
Philosophically, we will never know who is 'correct' today because... 'events, dear boy, events'.
By which I mean Casino could be correct that the West Lancs 10% swing doesn't meant a Labour landslide, even if (say, because Sunak goes from bad to worse) Labour do end up winning a landslide.
And vice versa of course.
True. End of the day money talks here on this betting forum. Biggest P&L is best pundit. Like my old trading days!
So? The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics. Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
Supporting the death penalty for serial killers is mainstream, over 50% of voters back it.
Even if the Tories didn't go as far as backing the death penalty for all murderers, there would be majority backing for serial killers.
It is unlikely the Tories ever will back capital punishment again but another party of the populist right like RefUK? Very likely
If the Tories are not backing capital punishment, why is Lee Anderson running off at the mouth about it?
I know the “clever” analysis is that Lee is there to keep the grassroots in a permanent state of frottage, but in reality Tory recovery is damaged every time he opens his mouth.
I am, like Mortimer, beginning to think that Sunak won’t get (much) past the locals.
So? The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics. Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
Supporting the death penalty for serial killers is mainstream, over 50% of voters back it.
Even if the Tories didn't go as far as backing the death penalty for all murderers, there would be majority backing for serial killers.
It is unlikely the Tories ever will back capital punishment again but another party of the populist right like RefUK? Very likely
You would take a life of somebody else would you? You sit behind your keyboard with your polls and your Tory Party propaganda set but I bet you couldn't.
You look that person in the eye and you take their life, they are gone forever. Could you really do that?
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
I've been lucky in life thanks to my parents, another thing I'm grateful for is the fact is that they've been happy and willing to provide me with 168 hours worth of free childcare a week for the last decade.
On Topic - OGH's learned commentary upon paucity of parliamentary by-elections at present, highlights the crying - nay, weeping! - need for the . . . wait for it . . .
PB BY-ELECTION BOTTLE BUS and TRAVELING PUB BREAKFAST POLITICAL THEATRE
Nothing short of the Resurrection of Screaming Lord Sutch would so enliven the electoral scene for punters, psephologists and the Great British Public!
The Lib Dems are also staring at a REALLY bad general election, when they would normally hope to benefit from Tory travails
I do not understand their inertia. The tactical move for them is obvious. Come out, loud and proud, as the party of Rejoin the EU immediately (after another referendum). There are enough hardcore Remoaners in southern England and the like to win them quite a few seats, indeed Remoaners tempted by Starmer might vote tactically for the LDs in the hope that they can pressure him towards Rejoin in a hung parliament
What the F are they playing at? This would also bring them much needed attention
It is amazing to me that no UK party is going out there swinging for the Rejoin vote, when the polls are clearly showing Brexit remorse
That's an interesting idea but we need to get more precise with the language on this now. After nearly 7 years you can't be both a Remoaner and a Rejoiner. A Remoaner is passive, pissed off, backwards looking; a Rejoiner is head up, future facing, active.
I avoid analogies as a rule, they're overdone in punditry and can easily slide into a silliness that helps no-one (eg Brexit is like changing a nappy), but a good way to illustrate what I mean here is to imagine your dog has shat on the carpet.
In which case you can (i) sit there looking at it, grumbling at the mess, castigating the dog and yourself for failing to train it properly; or (ii) you can screw that for a game of soldiers and go, "right, let's get this cleared up!" and then think about getting a goldfish.
Option (i) is Remoaning. Option (ii) is the can-do spirit of Rejoin.
I'm a Remoaner btw. I'm still slumped in my chair gazing at the steaming pile of doo doo, chuntering how it shouldn't have happened, "why oh why oh why", unable (yet) to get up and do anything about it. But one day (and I'll let everyone know when this happens) I'll snap out of this and then I'll be a Remoaner no more. I'll be a Rejoiner.
The thing is you and I didn't want the dog in the first place. Indeed, we raised some questions of what would happen to the cream carpets and the reasonably nice furniture. But we were overruled by our other half and their parents. This sort of thing happens, and is one of the spices of life. But they're not cleaning the mess up either, and sometimes hint that it's our fault for not training the dog properly.
And the worst of it? It's getting to the point where we probably could phone up Battersea Dog's Home and ask them to take Nigel the Bulldog away. But we'd feel like utter scumbags for doing that. At least today we would...
‘you and I didn’t want the dog in the first place’
=
‘These people never wanted to be parents in the first place”
Brexit = Baby remains the greatest analogy in the history of PB - maybe in the history of humanity. We can only hope that one day the immortal @SeanT might one day *Rejoin* pb
The analogy falls down because having a baby isn't that difficult and is a source of joy and fulfillment to the parents from day one. I'd say that Brexit is more like having a shit, one that turns out to be an unflushable turd. All that strain, followed by a bad smell and lingering embarrassment.
Post-natal depression is not uncommon, and can be particularly difficult to deal with because you're supposed to be happy about having a baby.
Will the Brexit baby blues pass?
I'd say they lifted when it became clear we'd get vaccinated before most of Europe. If we just stick at steadily choosing to do the right thing for the UK, and diverging sensibly where necessary, those types of advantages will occur more frequently. It seems to me actually very hard work to be as shit at being out of the EU as we are at the moment.
We were vaccinated before most of the rest of Europe because we have (probably) the best pharma industry in Europe. The vaccine "thing" is the Brexit apologists only argument and it is as vacuous and nonsensical as their lying bus slogan.
Nah that's utter rubbish. You are just trying to rewrite history to suit your own agenda. You are claiming that various EU countries just sat around refusing to authorise vaccines because they wanted to? They did it because, in spite of what the rules might have said about emergency approvals, the EU were desperate to have a united front on vaccines and acted on that basis.
There is an excellent article from Politico.eu about this which is worth reading as it sets out just what went so wrong with the EU vaccine response.
"Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc."
Honestly Richard, did you read that article?
"France and Spain separately began talks with Moderna, according to the Commission official. By mid-April, Paris and Berlin started negotiating together to buy vaccines, according to an Elysée official.
EU27 health ministers signed off on a Commission plan to buy on their behalf on June 12. But the Franco-German initiative continued to press forward, having invited the Netherlands and Italy to join their buyers’ club. "
Granted, France and Germany decided ultimately to stop their 'Inclusive Vaccine Alliance' and join in with the EU scheme but there was no necessity to do that, no compulsion.
Actually there was - hence the reason they got dragged back into line by the EU. And hence the reason Hungary got stomped on when it tried to make its own deals.
I did read the article very carefully. The difference is that I read it with an open mind whereas you, clearly, did not.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
Anderson's role is to remind disillusioned ex-Conservatives there is still a Conservative Party worth voting for. He will be Sunak's "attack dog" and will no doubt stomp round the rubber chicken title of Conservative associations wowing them with his "views".
Sunak can quietly and calmly slap him down to appease the liberal conservatives as can Hunt when Anderson goes on to his tax cutting mantra etc, etc. Braverman will quietly indulge him and his role will be to make a lot of noise and remind people what being a Conservative means. Those opposed will be angry but they don't count - it's about bringing the pro-law and order social conservatives in the Red Wall back on side.
Anderson may of course also have one eye on his own constituency which is far from secure.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
Agreed. To even by toying with the Death Penalty as an election ploy shows that if the Tories ever had a moral compass they have long ago lost it entirely.
The Lib Dems are also staring at a REALLY bad general election, when they would normally hope to benefit from Tory travails
I do not understand their inertia. The tactical move for them is obvious. Come out, loud and proud, as the party of Rejoin the EU immediately (after another referendum). There are enough hardcore Remoaners in southern England and the like to win them quite a few seats, indeed Remoaners tempted by Starmer might vote tactically for the LDs in the hope that they can pressure him towards Rejoin in a hung parliament
What the F are they playing at? This would also bring them much needed attention
It is amazing to me that no UK party is going out there swinging for the Rejoin vote, when the polls are clearly showing Brexit remorse
That's an interesting idea but we need to get more precise with the language on this now. After nearly 7 years you can't be both a Remoaner and a Rejoiner. A Remoaner is passive, pissed off, backwards looking; a Rejoiner is head up, future facing, active.
I avoid analogies as a rule, they're overdone in punditry and can easily slide into a silliness that helps no-one (eg Brexit is like changing a nappy), but a good way to illustrate what I mean here is to imagine your dog has shat on the carpet.
In which case you can (i) sit there looking at it, grumbling at the mess, castigating the dog and yourself for failing to train it properly; or (ii) you can screw that for a game of soldiers and go, "right, let's get this cleared up!" and then think about getting a goldfish.
Option (i) is Remoaning. Option (ii) is the can-do spirit of Rejoin.
I'm a Remoaner btw. I'm still slumped in my chair gazing at the steaming pile of doo doo, chuntering how it shouldn't have happened, "why oh why oh why", unable (yet) to get up and do anything about it. But one day (and I'll let everyone know when this happens) I'll snap out of this and then I'll be a Remoaner no more. I'll be a Rejoiner.
The thing is you and I didn't want the dog in the first place. Indeed, we raised some questions of what would happen to the cream carpets and the reasonably nice furniture. But we were overruled by our other half and their parents. This sort of thing happens, and is one of the spices of life. But they're not cleaning the mess up either, and sometimes hint that it's our fault for not training the dog properly.
And the worst of it? It's getting to the point where we probably could phone up Battersea Dog's Home and ask them to take Nigel the Bulldog away. But we'd feel like utter scumbags for doing that. At least today we would...
‘you and I didn’t want the dog in the first place’
=
‘These people never wanted to be parents in the first place”
Brexit = Baby remains the greatest analogy in the history of PB - maybe in the history of humanity. We can only hope that one day the immortal @SeanT might one day *Rejoin* pb
The analogy falls down because having a baby isn't that difficult and is a source of joy and fulfillment to the parents from day one. I'd say that Brexit is more like having a shit, one that turns out to be an unflushable turd. All that strain, followed by a bad smell and lingering embarrassment.
Post-natal depression is not uncommon, and can be particularly difficult to deal with because you're supposed to be happy about having a baby.
Will the Brexit baby blues pass?
I'd say they lifted when it became clear we'd get vaccinated before most of Europe. If we just stick at steadily choosing to do the right thing for the UK, and diverging sensibly where necessary, those types of advantages will occur more frequently. It seems to me actually very hard work to be as shit at being out of the EU as we are at the moment.
We were vaccinated before most of the rest of Europe because we have (probably) the best pharma industry in Europe. The vaccine "thing" is the Brexit apologists only argument and it is as vacuous and nonsensical as their lying bus slogan.
Nah that's utter rubbish. You are just trying to rewrite history to suit your own agenda. You are claiming that various EU countries just sat around refusing to authorise vaccines because they wanted to? They did it because, in spite of what the rules might have said about emergency approvals, the EU were desperate to have a united front on vaccines and acted on that basis.
There is an excellent article from Politico.eu about this which is worth reading as it sets out just what went so wrong with the EU vaccine response.
"Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc."
Honestly Richard, did you read that article?
"France and Spain separately began talks with Moderna, according to the Commission official. By mid-April, Paris and Berlin started negotiating together to buy vaccines, according to an Elysée official.
EU27 health ministers signed off on a Commission plan to buy on their behalf on June 12. But the Franco-German initiative continued to press forward, having invited the Netherlands and Italy to join their buyers’ club. "
Granted, France and Germany decided ultimately to stop their 'Inclusive Vaccine Alliance' and join in with the EU scheme but there was no necessity to do that, no compulsion.
If there was no necessity ir compulsion, why did they do it? Doing so was clearly a shit idea.
You'd have to ask them but I assume: 1. They wanted to support EU cohesion and 2. Maybe felt they'd get a better deal with a the EU acting as a bloc.
And, ultimately, it wasn't that stupid an idea. Suppliers would love to play one government off against the other; see PPE in the early days.
Whether it was the right thing in this situation, I don't know. But it wasn't that terrible a plan, and every nation for themselves might not work as well for the UK next time.
Not stupid at all, not even when they nearly scuppered the Good Friday agreement all over the AZ vaccine! Just remember the mantra UK bad EU good!
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
Sunak did say yesterday he was opposed to the death penalty and so is his government.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
To be fair, I think Sunak has moved to distance himself from Anderson. There's no majority in the Commons for restoration - the last attempts were soundly defeated - I believe in the Thatcher era when the Conservative majority was larger than it is now.
MPs aren't mandated to follow every twist and turn in public opinion.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
I had one child in the nineties, we never had another because we couldn't frankly afford it. Seemed a case back then the only people who could afford children was the very poor or the rich because the rest of us got fuck all help except child benefit which wasnt a huge amount.
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
To be fair, I think Sunak has moved to distance himself from Anderson. There's no majority in the Commons for restoration - the last attempts were soundly defeated - I believe in the Thatcher era when the Conservative majority was larger than it is now.
MPs aren't mandated to follow every twist and turn in public opinion.
Sunak has not distanced himself from Anderson. He’s just appointed him deputy chair.
Something I called as batshit when it happened about three days ago.
The problem is that the Tory Party has lost any sense of right and wrong.
Obviously the death penalty is wrong - giving a referendum on it would be despicable. But it's not about that anymore, they don't take a stand on anything. If they can get a few votes in the short term they will do it.
This lot need to be junked and junked in a big way. For the first time I am convinced we need a Labour landslide.
The problem is that the Tory Party has lost any sense of right and wrong.
Obviously the death penalty is wrong - giving a referendum on it would be despicable. But it's not about that anymore, they don't take a stand on anything. If they can get a few votes in the short term they will do it.
This lot need to be junked and junked in a big way. For the first time I am convinced we need a Labour landslide.
For the first time I am convinced we are getting one.
Anderson's role is to remind disillusioned ex-Conservatives there is still a Conservative Party worth voting for. He will be Sunak's "attack dog" and will no doubt stomp round the rubber chicken title of Conservative associations wowing them with his "views".
Sunak can quietly and calmly slap him down to appease the liberal conservatives as can Hunt when Anderson goes on to his tax cutting mantra etc, etc. Braverman will quietly indulge him and his role will be to make a lot of noise and remind people what being a Conservative means. Those opposed will be angry but they don't count - it's about bringing the pro-law and order social conservatives in the Red Wall back on side.
Anderson may of course also have one eye on his own constituency which is far from secure.
Anderson is in a very low level job. It's like Cameron appointing Mark Francois as Europe Minister - it was a token appointment that had no genuine role in shaping policy toward Europe.
I quite like the little I have seen of Anderson so far, but what's ridiculous is the usual suspects trying to pin the Tories' forthcoming whupping/s on people like Anderson, when it's actually on Rishi and his dismal poverty of ambition and failure of leadership. It is almost as ridiculous as those same people trying to pin the whupping/s on Truss doing an article.
The fact plain is, they got their well-turned out arch-insider, and he's turned out (so far) to have zero answers to offer on the big questions of the day, of which the biggest is why are people being impoverished by their electricity bill. He's also not a very good political operator, though that's an amusing sideshow.
FWIW I do know a KC who has done many criminal trials, he reckons that if the death penalty was ever introduced there'd be so many deadlocked juries who didn't want the potential death of an innocent person on their conscience that they would vote to acquit a lot more.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
It is virtually certain that some of the ex-British Army soldiers who've joined the Ukrainian Army are actually there at the behest of the British government. Observing the reality of modern war. Reporting back.
Right now, one of them is probably looking at some Russian soldiers through some kind of sight. When he does the inevitable, that is state sanctioned killing.
Why is it that you feel that is different to capital punishment - I actually agree it is. But why is it?
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
To be fair, I think Sunak has moved to distance himself from Anderson. There's no majority in the Commons for restoration - the last attempts were soundly defeated - I believe in the Thatcher era when the Conservative majority was larger than it is now.
MPs aren't mandated to follow every twist and turn in public opinion.
Thatcher held regular votes on capital punishment, because she believed that was the best way to keep it abolished.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
To be fair, I think Sunak has moved to distance himself from Anderson. There's no majority in the Commons for restoration - the last attempts were soundly defeated - I believe in the Thatcher era when the Conservative majority was larger than it is now.
MPs aren't mandated to follow every twist and turn in public opinion.
Thatcher held regular votes on capital punishment, because she believed that was the best way to keep it abolished.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
I see you're in one of your better moods.
I am always in a good mood it just doesn't stop me realising that all our main parties are crap, bereft of any idea's except managerial decline. Labour gets in 2024 I bet by next election they will have made no difference. Likewise if its another tory government or a lib dem one because they have no idea's except carry on as we are and tweak the tax codes a little but not too much
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
I had one child in the nineties, we never had another because we couldn't frankly afford it. Seemed a case back then the only people who could afford children was the very poor or the rich because the rest of us got fuck all help except child benefit which wasnt a huge amount.
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
Yes. Of various friends over the years, the filtration process has been -
- The very well off have stayed in central London. Defined as an easy tube ride home. - A couple of them, who kind of crashed financially, got into council accommodation and live in areas like Bloomsbury. - A bunch who were middling in income moved into the 2 hour commute zone.
London isn't as extreme in this, as Paris is, but it is a definite thing.
One thing to note: in the debate on MPs living standards, a number of MPs said that they had to have a house in London, since otherwise getting an au pair was impossible.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
I had one child in the nineties, we never had another because we couldn't frankly afford it. Seemed a case back then the only people who could afford children was the very poor or the rich because the rest of us got fuck all help except child benefit which wasnt a huge amount.
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
Yes. Of various friends over the years, the filtration process has been -
- The very well off have stayed in central London. Defined as an easy tube ride home. - A couple of them, who kind of crashed financially, got into council accommodation and live in areas like Bloomsbury. - A bunch who were middling in income moved into the 2 hour commute zone.
London isn't as extreme in this, as Paris is, but it is a definite thing.
One thing to note: in the debate on MPs living standards, a number of MPs said that they had to have a house in London, since otherwise getting an au pair was impossible.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget. ...
A country already struggling with debt really needs a morally bankrupt party to add to the country's financial bankruptcy to try and lessen the effects of an election that party is on course to lose badly.....
As usual, the needs of the "Conservatives" come ahead of the needs of the country!
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
I'm slow to catch-up on the West Lancashire by-election news but I'm not sure a 10.5% swing points at a Labour landslide, let alone a Tory wipeout. And turnout was woeful.
There were bigger swings against Labour in the 2005-2010 Parliament in a variety of by-elections, including Crewe & Nantwich, Norwich North, Sedgefield, and Glasgow East.
I think an awful lot turns on whether the Conservatives can rally their base.
Much more difficult to get a 10% swing when you already have over 50% of the vote, mind.
I'm not sure that argument totally washes though.
Labour got barely half of the votes they got in the same seat in 2019. Where were the other half plus all the new converts?
Hmm.
Yes but. Comparable seats in the 2005-10 Parliament are not the ones you quote, but Conservative held ones.
OK, I've now given a few examples from the 1992-1997 parliament.
I now expect to be told those are all different too because Reasons.
Not at all. We are having a civilised, evidenced disagreement about the import of a minor by election. At least to my mind. Who is correct will only come out in time.
FWIW, you may be right and I may well be wrong.
But, I can promise you I am reviewing my betting positions of the back of this.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
The reason he [edit] m ay end up being freed is because of legislation passed by, or [edit] allowed to remain as is, by the Conservative Party, which has been in power alone or in coalition for most of the last half century.
Edit: It's called the law. Not, at the moment, just what is good for the Conservative Party, at least it's not supposed to be.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
Surely the death penalty isn't a problem for Hindus etc. Knock off the wrong person? it doesn't matter too much they get reincarnated.
So? The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics. Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
Could well be. Jury is out. But regardless of outcome, no-one could accuse the Tories of not trying their hardest to lose as badly as possible. The sight is awesome. And not long ago it seemed impossible....The Hartlepool by election was a lot less than 2 years ago.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
UX'ers tend to be it looks pretty over it works, you get on with them says more about you than me however yes content managers are even worse
I've worked in several different tech companies (mainly in the Cambridge area) in the chip design and embedded tech spaces, and know many techies.
It's actually quite hard to pin down any commonality between them: there are a few hippies, some lefties, some on the right. There have been Lib Dems, Greens, Communists and even a naturist. I've known a couple of anarchist techies (yes, an anarchist coder).
About the only thing they have in common is reasonably high salaries, and perhaps trending towards middle and upper-middle class. Perhaps it's different in places like San Francisco or London (though it wasn't when I was down there), but IME the portrayals on TV and in movies are often hilariously wrong. The realist of being trapped in a software factory (*) is often much funnier, and sometimes comitragic, than people think.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
I had one child in the nineties, we never had another because we couldn't frankly afford it. Seemed a case back then the only people who could afford children was the very poor or the rich because the rest of us got fuck all help except child benefit which wasnt a huge amount.
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
Yes. Of various friends over the years, the filtration process has been -
- The very well off have stayed in central London. Defined as an easy tube ride home. - A couple of them, who kind of crashed financially, got into council accommodation and live in areas like Bloomsbury. - A bunch who were middling in income moved into the 2 hour commute zone.
London isn't as extreme in this, as Paris is, but it is a definite thing.
One thing to note: in the debate on MPs living standards, a number of MPs said that they had to have a house in London, since otherwise getting an au pair was impossible.
New York might be worse. Hard for me to really be sure, but I just read that the median three bed apartment in Manhattan is now over $10,000 per month.
New York tax rates are essentially the same as the UK’s, so you’d need a combined salary of at least $300k. And this is Manhattan entire, so includes lots of not-very-nice places.
The Lib Dems are also staring at a REALLY bad general election, when they would normally hope to benefit from Tory travails
I do not understand their inertia. The tactical move for them is obvious. Come out, loud and proud, as the party of Rejoin the EU immediately (after another referendum). There are enough hardcore Remoaners in southern England and the like to win them quite a few seats, indeed Remoaners tempted by Starmer might vote tactically for the LDs in the hope that they can pressure him towards Rejoin in a hung parliament
What the F are they playing at? This would also bring them much needed attention
It is amazing to me that no UK party is going out there swinging for the Rejoin vote, when the polls are clearly showing Brexit remorse
That's an interesting idea but we need to get more precise with the language on this now. After nearly 7 years you can't be both a Remoaner and a Rejoiner. A Remoaner is passive, pissed off, backwards looking; a Rejoiner is head up, future facing, active.
I avoid analogies as a rule, they're overdone in punditry and can easily slide into a silliness that helps no-one (eg Brexit is like changing a nappy), but a good way to illustrate what I mean here is to imagine your dog has shat on the carpet.
In which case you can (i) sit there looking at it, grumbling at the mess, castigating the dog and yourself for failing to train it properly; or (ii) you can screw that for a game of soldiers and go, "right, let's get this cleared up!" and then think about getting a goldfish.
Option (i) is Remoaning. Option (ii) is the can-do spirit of Rejoin.
I'm a Remoaner btw. I'm still slumped in my chair gazing at the steaming pile of doo doo, chuntering how it shouldn't have happened, "why oh why oh why", unable (yet) to get up and do anything about it. But one day (and I'll let everyone know when this happens) I'll snap out of this and then I'll be a Remoaner no more. I'll be a Rejoiner.
The thing is you and I didn't want the dog in the first place. Indeed, we raised some questions of what would happen to the cream carpets and the reasonably nice furniture. But we were overruled by our other half and their parents. This sort of thing happens, and is one of the spices of life. But they're not cleaning the mess up either, and sometimes hint that it's our fault for not training the dog properly.
And the worst of it? It's getting to the point where we probably could phone up Battersea Dog's Home and ask them to take Nigel the Bulldog away. But we'd feel like utter scumbags for doing that. At least today we would...
‘you and I didn’t want the dog in the first place’
=
‘These people never wanted to be parents in the first place”
Brexit = Baby remains the greatest analogy in the history of PB - maybe in the history of humanity. We can only hope that one day the immortal @SeanT might one day *Rejoin* pb
The analogy falls down because having a baby isn't that difficult and is a source of joy and fulfillment to the parents from day one. I'd say that Brexit is more like having a shit, one that turns out to be an unflushable turd. All that strain, followed by a bad smell and lingering embarrassment.
Post-natal depression is not uncommon, and can be particularly difficult to deal with because you're supposed to be happy about having a baby.
Will the Brexit baby blues pass?
I'd say they lifted when it became clear we'd get vaccinated before most of Europe. If we just stick at steadily choosing to do the right thing for the UK, and diverging sensibly where necessary, those types of advantages will occur more frequently. It seems to me actually very hard work to be as shit at being out of the EU as we are at the moment.
We were vaccinated before most of the rest of Europe because we have (probably) the best pharma industry in Europe. The vaccine "thing" is the Brexit apologists only argument and it is as vacuous and nonsensical as their lying bus slogan.
Nah that's utter rubbish. You are just trying to rewrite history to suit your own agenda. You are claiming that various EU countries just sat around refusing to authorise vaccines because they wanted to? They did it because, in spite of what the rules might have said about emergency approvals, the EU were desperate to have a united front on vaccines and acted on that basis.
There is an excellent article from Politico.eu about this which is worth reading as it sets out just what went so wrong with the EU vaccine response.
"Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc."
Honestly Richard, did you read that article?
"France and Spain separately began talks with Moderna, according to the Commission official. By mid-April, Paris and Berlin started negotiating together to buy vaccines, according to an Elysée official.
EU27 health ministers signed off on a Commission plan to buy on their behalf on June 12. But the Franco-German initiative continued to press forward, having invited the Netherlands and Italy to join their buyers’ club. "
Granted, France and Germany decided ultimately to stop their 'Inclusive Vaccine Alliance' and join in with the EU scheme but there was no necessity to do that, no compulsion.
If there was no necessity ir compulsion, why did they do it? Doing so was clearly a shit idea.
Not every EU country was part of the EU vaccine purchase plan: Hungary publicly snubbed it to purchase Sputnik instead. (And then came back later after Sputnik was a bit of a dud.)
Voters used to support Section 28 and it was just as wrong then.
And the Tories never repealed S28, Labour did in 2003.
It was also Labour that permanently abolished capital punishment in 1969, not the Tories
My recollection is that votes on the death penalty have never been whipped. All parties have allowed their MPs to vote according to their consciences. If you are trying to make it a party political issue, you are absolutely wrong.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
The problem is that the Tory Party has lost any sense of right and wrong.
Obviously the death penalty is wrong - giving a referendum on it would be despicable. But it's not about that anymore, they don't take a stand on anything. If they can get a few votes in the short term they will do it.
This lot need to be junked and junked in a big way. For the first time I am convinced we need a Labour landslide.
For the first time I am convinced we are getting one.
Totally irrational.
You are 'convinced' we are getting one because someone has challenged the fact that we might not be getting one.
This is @Gardenwalker lashing out because his neocortex is fighting with his brain stem.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
UX'ers tend to be it looks pretty over it works, you get on with them says more about you than me however yes content managers are even worse
There's a massive difference between a good UX person and a poor one. I've known some genuinely brilliant ones, whose contributions were every bit as important as the most senior developers.
(Or, to put it another way, iOS didn't happen by accident.)
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
4, juries will acquit people they think are guilty, rather than have any part in an execution.
Tories will want it not just for its own sake but because it is incompatible with rejoining.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
If Rishi believes in the death penalty - I am staggered that his so-called religion would allow him to but what do I know? - then he should come out and say so.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
The death penalty is rather divisive. Simplistically I see two reasons not to have it (or possibly three). Firstly some believe the state should not have to take lives, period. Secondly there are those who have less of an issue with that, but still oppose because there is too much chance of a terminal miscarriage of justice. Lastly there is the argument that it doesn’t actually act as a deterrent.
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
This could help the Tories. I know how much childcare costs impacts so many voters.
The Treasury is considering a proposal to massively expand free childcare to one- and two-year-olds in England in a move that would cost billions at the spring budget.
Department for Education officials have submitted a plan for a free 30-hours-a-week entitlement for working parents of children aged nine months to three years, after being asked to work up options by the Treasury.
Other options include offering a smaller number of free hours for two-year-olds, an offer of 10 free hours for disadvantaged one-year-olds, and adjusting the ratios for childcare providers to allow adults to look after more children.
It comes after Labour signalled it would make a transformational offer to parents at the next election, with the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledging a modern childcare system that works from the end of parental leave until the end of primary school.
I remember about a decade ago I had two kids under two at nursery. Every day they were both in nursery cost me about £90, which was about as much as I earned in a day after tax. The only reason for me to work was so I still had a job by the time they went to school. Children are pretty much unaffordable for average income earners. I'm not saying this is the solution I'd have chosen, but at least it's A solution, which is more than we've had in the 21st century. Best massively-expensive public spending pledge of my lifetime, if it comes off.
When the new rules on child care - chiefly number of children per adult - were brought in, New Labour were warned that because they were the lowest raise in Europe, they would make child care wildly expensive.
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
I had one child in the nineties, we never had another because we couldn't frankly afford it. Seemed a case back then the only people who could afford children was the very poor or the rich because the rest of us got fuck all help except child benefit which wasnt a huge amount.
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
Yes. Of various friends over the years, the filtration process has been -
- The very well off have stayed in central London. Defined as an easy tube ride home. - A couple of them, who kind of crashed financially, got into council accommodation and live in areas like Bloomsbury. - A bunch who were middling in income moved into the 2 hour commute zone.
London isn't as extreme in this, as Paris is, but it is a definite thing.
One thing to note: in the debate on MPs living standards, a number of MPs said that they had to have a house in London, since otherwise getting an au pair was impossible.
New York might be worse. Hard for me to really be sure, but I just read that the median three bed apartment in Manhattan is now over $10,000 per month.
New York tax rates are essentially the same as the UK’s, so you’d need a combined salary of at least $300k. And this is Manhattan entire, so includes lots of not-very-nice places.
Does manhattan though have people having their rent paid by tax payers and people suggesting they might live somewhere cheaper that its inhumane making them move out because they have a support circle....apparently that only applies to people on housing benefit...work for a living and have to move out tough luck for not working harder
So? The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics. Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
Could well be. Jury is out. But regardless of outcome, no-one could accuse the Tories of not trying their hardest to lose as badly as possible. The sight is awesome. And not long ago it seemed impossible....The Hartlepool by election was a lot less than 2 years ago.
It has been a breathtaking collapse.
In some ways pleasurable of course, to see absolute moral vacuums like HYUFD go down with the ship.
The issue is that the country needs a new direction YESTERDAY.
Voters used to support Section 28 and it was just as wrong then.
And the Tories never repealed S28, Labour did in 2003.
It was also Labour that permanently abolished capital punishment in 1969, not the Tories
My recollection is that votes on the death penalty have never been whipped. All parties have allowed their MPs to vote according to their consciences. If you are trying to make it a party political issue, you are absolutely wrong.
I am not particularly but if Tory MPs like Anderson want to back the death penalty they are perfectly entitled to do so, in fact in working class areas like Ashfield most of their voters would agree with their position on the subject.
The middle class have always been more economically conservative than the working class but the working class have always been more socially conservative than the middle class
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
UX'ers tend to be it looks pretty over it works, you get on with them says more about you than me however yes content managers are even worse
There's a massive difference between a good UX person and a poor one. I've known some genuinely brilliant ones, whose contributions were every bit as important as the most senior developers.
(Or, to put it another way, iOS didn't happen by accident.)
All jobs have some brilliant people, with ux designers I have yet to meet one over several companies where we haven't looked at the designs and pointed out they might look prettier but people need to dig through multiple menu's for the features they actually use daily while the features they rarely use are on the front screen
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
UX'ers tend to be it looks pretty over it works, you get on with them says more about you than me however yes content managers are even worse
In my experience UX vs implementing engineers is a bit like Architects vs builders.
The good ones love feedback on the practicality of their designs and seek it out, then adapt to what works.
The bad ones get precious and stamp their feet when their artistic integrity is called into question.
Pretty depressing discussion on the death penalty, reminiscent of a school debating society. Fortunately, there's no chance of it being brought back during my lifetime, at least. But the fact that it's even deemed worthy of debate adds fuel to the regressive fire we've been playing with for some years now.
Pretty soon, I expect Lee Anderson to pop up and say "my teachers used to beat me to within an inch of my life, and it never did me any harm".
And HYUFD will write "actually, YouGov found that 58% of voters want the cane brought back for when kids are really, really naughty".
The Lib Dems are also staring at a REALLY bad general election, when they would normally hope to benefit from Tory travails
I do not understand their inertia. The tactical move for them is obvious. Come out, loud and proud, as the party of Rejoin the EU immediately (after another referendum). There are enough hardcore Remoaners in southern England and the like to win them quite a few seats, indeed Remoaners tempted by Starmer might vote tactically for the LDs in the hope that they can pressure him towards Rejoin in a hung parliament
What the F are they playing at? This would also bring them much needed attention
It is amazing to me that no UK party is going out there swinging for the Rejoin vote, when the polls are clearly showing Brexit remorse
That's an interesting idea but we need to get more precise with the language on this now. After nearly 7 years you can't be both a Remoaner and a Rejoiner. A Remoaner is passive, pissed off, backwards looking; a Rejoiner is head up, future facing, active.
I avoid analogies as a rule, they're overdone in punditry and can easily slide into a silliness that helps no-one (eg Brexit is like changing a nappy), but a good way to illustrate what I mean here is to imagine your dog has shat on the carpet.
In which case you can (i) sit there looking at it, grumbling at the mess, castigating the dog and yourself for failing to train it properly; or (ii) you can screw that for a game of soldiers and go, "right, let's get this cleared up!" and then think about getting a goldfish.
Option (i) is Remoaning. Option (ii) is the can-do spirit of Rejoin.
I'm a Remoaner btw. I'm still slumped in my chair gazing at the steaming pile of doo doo, chuntering how it shouldn't have happened, "why oh why oh why", unable (yet) to get up and do anything about it. But one day (and I'll let everyone know when this happens) I'll snap out of this and then I'll be a Remoaner no more. I'll be a Rejoiner.
The thing is you and I didn't want the dog in the first place. Indeed, we raised some questions of what would happen to the cream carpets and the reasonably nice furniture. But we were overruled by our other half and their parents. This sort of thing happens, and is one of the spices of life. But they're not cleaning the mess up either, and sometimes hint that it's our fault for not training the dog properly.
And the worst of it? It's getting to the point where we probably could phone up Battersea Dog's Home and ask them to take Nigel the Bulldog away. But we'd feel like utter scumbags for doing that. At least today we would...
‘you and I didn’t want the dog in the first place’
=
‘These people never wanted to be parents in the first place”
Brexit = Baby remains the greatest analogy in the history of PB - maybe in the history of humanity. We can only hope that one day the immortal @SeanT might one day *Rejoin* pb
The analogy falls down because having a baby isn't that difficult and is a source of joy and fulfillment to the parents from day one. I'd say that Brexit is more like having a shit, one that turns out to be an unflushable turd. All that strain, followed by a bad smell and lingering embarrassment.
Post-natal depression is not uncommon, and can be particularly difficult to deal with because you're supposed to be happy about having a baby.
Will the Brexit baby blues pass?
I'd say they lifted when it became clear we'd get vaccinated before most of Europe. If we just stick at steadily choosing to do the right thing for the UK, and diverging sensibly where necessary, those types of advantages will occur more frequently. It seems to me actually very hard work to be as shit at being out of the EU as we are at the moment.
We were vaccinated before most of the rest of Europe because we have (probably) the best pharma industry in Europe. The vaccine "thing" is the Brexit apologists only argument and it is as vacuous and nonsensical as their lying bus slogan.
Nah that's utter rubbish. You are just trying to rewrite history to suit your own agenda. You are claiming that various EU countries just sat around refusing to authorise vaccines because they wanted to? They did it because, in spite of what the rules might have said about emergency approvals, the EU were desperate to have a united front on vaccines and acted on that basis.
There is an excellent article from Politico.eu about this which is worth reading as it sets out just what went so wrong with the EU vaccine response.
"Countries can’t just follow the U.K.’s lead by unilaterally authorizing vaccines purchased by the EU — doses purchased by Brussels can only be released after they get the EMA’s signoff, according to the agreement. So even though Budapest tried to make a point by green-lighting the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, it won’t get any shots before the rest of the bloc."
Honestly Richard, did you read that article?
"France and Spain separately began talks with Moderna, according to the Commission official. By mid-April, Paris and Berlin started negotiating together to buy vaccines, according to an Elysée official.
EU27 health ministers signed off on a Commission plan to buy on their behalf on June 12. But the Franco-German initiative continued to press forward, having invited the Netherlands and Italy to join their buyers’ club. "
Granted, France and Germany decided ultimately to stop their 'Inclusive Vaccine Alliance' and join in with the EU scheme but there was no necessity to do that, no compulsion.
If there was no necessity ir compulsion, why did they do it? Doing so was clearly a shit idea.
Not every EU country was part of the EU vaccine purchase plan: Hungary publicly snubbed it to purchase Sputnik instead. (And then came back later after Sputnik was a bit of a dud.)
But that's not an argument against Richard's - he said that we could have approved and used vaccines that weren't shared with the EU scheme, and that is presumably why Hungary could use Sputnik.
So? The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics. Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
Could well be. Jury is out. But regardless of outcome, no-one could accuse the Tories of not trying their hardest to lose as badly as possible. The sight is awesome. And not long ago it seemed impossible....The Hartlepool by election was a lot less than 2 years ago.
It has been a breathtaking collapse.
In some ways pleasurable of course, to see absolute moral vacuums like HYUFD go down with the ship.
The issue is that the country needs a new direction YESTERDAY.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : What's the matter, Bernard? Bernard Woolley : Oh nothing really, Sir Humphrey. Sir Humphrey Appleby : You look unhappy. Bernard Woolley : Well, I was just wondering if the minister was right, actually. Sir Humphrey Appleby : Very unlikely. What about? Bernard Woolley : About ends and means. I mean, will I end up as a moral vacuum too? Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh, I hope so, Bernard. If you work hard enough.
The problem is that the Tory Party has lost any sense of right and wrong.
Obviously the death penalty is wrong - giving a referendum on it would be despicable. But it's not about that anymore, they don't take a stand on anything. If they can get a few votes in the short term they will do it.
This lot need to be junked and junked in a big way. For the first time I am convinced we need a Labour landslide.
For the first time I am convinced we are getting one.
Totally irrational.
You are 'convinced' we are getting one because someone has challenged the fact that we might not be getting one.
This is @Gardenwalker lashing out because his neocortex is fighting with his brain stem.
No.
I don’t mind your counter-argument, and it’s a reasonable one.
I am more looking at what I think the Tories need to be doing to close the gaps, and seeing them not do it.
Also, I’m very persuaded by the uncanny alignment between the by-election result and the MRP poll.
Own a house, work in the private sector, earn very well and I am a hard worker.
Yet the Tories continue to drift away from me. One day this will cause them a lot of problems, that day will yet come.
Tech workers are probably not Tories, on the whole.
We aren't labour or lib dem supporters either because they are all shite
Given your rather contrary contributions to PB one doubts you are indicative of anything apart from the political preferences of certain blobfish.
Most it people are intelligent apart from ux designers, we realise that none of the parties figures add up
That’s a slur on UX designers.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
There is a reason most it people refer to UX designers as crayons
As a class, I get on well with UXers. I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt. Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
UX'ers tend to be it looks pretty over it works, you get on with them says more about you than me however yes content managers are even worse
In my experience UX vs implementing engineers is a bit like Architects vs builders.
The good ones love feedback on the practicality of their designs and seek it out, then adapt to what works.
The bad ones get precious and stamp their feet when their artistic integrity is called into question.
Comments
That is far higher than the current Tory voteshare
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/30/britons-dont-tend-support-death-penalty-until-you-
Treasury have already briefed against it.
https://twitter.com/pickardje/status/1624119337735815175?s=46&t=I48FWK5XnACHoMTU-xwmHg
The issue is overwhelmingly toxic to the rest of the population.
This is terrible politics.
Mainstream Tory-leaning people just think today’s Tories are absolute arseholes. They are going to stay home in droves.
Contra to Casino, I am starting to think the Tories are actually setting themselves up for just the kind of annihilation we see in some polls.
59, 79 and 140 - the positions of Chester, Lancashire West and Stretford & Urmiston on the list of Labour marginal seats. East Ham (my constituency) sits at 188 - it's the 15th safest Labour seat in the country based on the 2019 GE results.
The swing in Chester was 13.7% (turnout 41%), in Lancashire West it was 10.6% (turnout 31%) and in Stretford & Urmiston 10.5% on a 26% turnout.
So what can we see? The most marginal seat and the largest turnout gets the biggest swing.
Given normal election turnouts are 30-40 % higher than most GEs in these safe seats, there's an argument perhaps these results aren't as "bad" for Labour as some are suggesting.
Of course we have now had a black swan intervention from Lee Anderson, so go back to your constituencies and prepare for a further five years of Conservative Government.
Even if the Tories didn't go as far as backing the death penalty for all murderers, there would be majority backing for serial killers.
It is unlikely the Tories ever will back capital punishment again but another party of the populist right like RefUK? Very likely
I know the “clever” analysis is that Lee is there to keep the grassroots in a permanent state of frottage, but in reality Tory recovery is damaged every time he opens his mouth.
I am, like Mortimer, beginning to think that Sunak won’t get (much) past the locals.
You look that person in the eye and you take their life, they are gone forever. Could you really do that?
PB BY-ELECTION BOTTLE BUS and TRAVELING PUB BREAKFAST POLITICAL THEATRE
Nothing short of the Resurrection of Screaming Lord Sutch would so enliven the electoral scene for punters, psephologists and the Great British Public!
Just sayin'.
Voters used to support Section 28 and it was just as wrong then.
I did read the article very carefully. The difference is that I read it with an open mind whereas you, clearly, did not.
These are the last throws of a dying Government.
But these are not empty words, we are talking about people here. People that will have their lives taken if it meant a few points in the polls.
This country needs a reset and fast. We're heading one way right now and it is not the compassionate country that the UK is or should be.
The Tories must get out of Government.
Anderson's role is to remind disillusioned ex-Conservatives there is still a Conservative Party worth voting for. He will be Sunak's "attack dog" and will no doubt stomp round the rubber chicken title of Conservative associations wowing them with his "views".
Sunak can quietly and calmly slap him down to appease the liberal conservatives as can Hunt when Anderson goes on to his tax cutting mantra etc, etc. Braverman will quietly indulge him and his role will be to make a lot of noise and remind people what being a Conservative means. Those opposed will be angry but they don't count - it's about bringing the pro-law and order social conservatives in the Red Wall back on side.
Anderson may of course also have one eye on his own constituency which is far from secure.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/09/lee-anderson-tory-vice-chair-backed-death-penalty-and-naval-standoffin-channel
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11713743/Serial-killer-Patrick-Mackay-grilled-Parole-Board-safe-freed-freed.html
Hindu majority India still has capital punishment for the most heinous crimes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_India
So they did.
Anyone who suggested less was attacked as not caring about the children.
So, in London, the price of full time childcare in a proper, fully legal nursery reached the cost of a private school. So parents who could scrape by were "trained" into paying £1K a month for their child. Strangely, there was noted expansion of private primary schools around this time....
For those who couldn't afford £1K a month, per child, the situation resembled that before minicabs were licensed. When the rich took black cabs and the less well off went to Mustafacab*
*The self applied, joking name of the gent who controlled an empire "minicabs" from a road near Leicester square. Jolly giant of a bloke in a jellaba, stood out in the street shouting orders to his flunkies. The cars were falling apart, the drivers... not very good, the prices insanely low.
MPs aren't mandated to follow every twist and turn in public opinion.
Would you take a life?
It was also Labour that permanently abolished capital punishment in 1969, not the Tories
Non sequitur after non sequitur.
With the arrival of ChatGPT, perhaps his lesser variant of “intelligence” should now be retired.
Would you take a life?
Do you think being gay is a problem?
Same as most high col areas now, the people who can live there are the rich or the very poor who get it paid for, normally waged people have to live a while away and pay to commute
Something I called as batshit when it happened about three days ago.
Obviously the death penalty is wrong - giving a referendum on it would be despicable. But it's not about that anymore, they don't take a stand on anything. If they can get a few votes in the short term they will do it.
This lot need to be junked and junked in a big way. For the first time I am convinced we need a Labour landslide.
Every day Section 28 was on the books it was an insidious.
Thank God a Tory PM went so far to correct the introduction of S28 he went and introduced same sex marriage.
I quite like the little I have seen of Anderson so far, but what's ridiculous is the usual suspects trying to pin the Tories' forthcoming whupping/s on people like Anderson, when it's actually on Rishi and his dismal poverty of ambition and failure of leadership. It is almost as ridiculous as those same people trying to pin the whupping/s on Truss doing an article.
The fact plain is, they got their well-turned out arch-insider, and he's turned out (so far) to have zero answers to offer on the big questions of the day, of which the biggest is why are people being impoverished by their electricity bill. He's also not a very good political operator, though that's an amusing sideshow.
Almost all social change in the UK comes under Labour or Liberal governments or via Labour and Liberal MPs with the Tories eventually accepting it.
Most free market economic reforms though come under the Tories with Labour eventually accepting them
It is virtually certain that some of the ex-British Army soldiers who've joined the Ukrainian Army are actually there at the behest of the British government. Observing the reality of modern war. Reporting back.
Right now, one of them is probably looking at some Russian soldiers through some kind of sight. When he does the inevitable, that is state sanctioned killing.
Why is it that you feel that is different to capital punishment - I actually agree it is. But why is it?
I am not in favour of restoring the death penalty, but events such as the murders of Lee Rigby and Sarah Everard test peoples beliefs to the limit. Why should such murderers have live, when their victims do not.
In my experience techies tend to be cynical libertarians with social democratic tendencies (or social democrats with libertarian tendencies). I would wage that Tory voting share with techies right now is close to single figures.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11713743/Serial-killer-Patrick-Mackay-grilled-Parole-Board-safe-freed-freed.html
- The very well off have stayed in central London. Defined as an easy tube ride home.
- A couple of them, who kind of crashed financially, got into council accommodation and live in areas like Bloomsbury.
- A bunch who were middling in income moved into the 2 hour commute zone.
London isn't as extreme in this, as Paris is, but it is a definite thing.
One thing to note: in the debate on MPs living standards, a number of MPs said that they had to have a house in London, since otherwise getting an au pair was impossible.
If serial killers are let out early rather than dying in jail, then support for capital punishment for them will only rise further
I’m sorry to hear you hold them in comtempt.
Perhaps the standard has dropped in the last several years.
In my experience, “content managers” have the least actual skill.
As usual, the needs of the "Conservatives" come ahead of the needs of the country!
You are quite repellant.
But if you want to look down your liberal metropolitan elite nose at the majority of the British population and call them repellant that is up to you!
Edit: It's called the law. Not, at the moment, just what is good for the Conservative Party, at least it's not supposed to be.
It's actually quite hard to pin down any commonality between them: there are a few hippies, some lefties, some on the right. There have been Lib Dems, Greens, Communists and even a naturist. I've known a couple of anarchist techies (yes, an anarchist coder).
About the only thing they have in common is reasonably high salaries, and perhaps trending towards middle and upper-middle class. Perhaps it's different in places like San Francisco or London (though it wasn't when I was down there), but IME the portrayals on TV and in movies are often hilariously wrong. The realist of being trapped in a software factory (*) is often much funnier, and sometimes comitragic, than people think.
(*) in 3D!
Hard for me to really be sure, but I just read that the median three bed apartment in Manhattan is now over $10,000 per month.
New York tax rates are essentially the same as the UK’s, so you’d need a combined salary of at least $300k. And this is Manhattan entire, so includes lots of not-very-nice places.
I was talking about you specifically and your attempt to wave serial killers about to justify the Tory Party’s new flirtation with the subject.
You don’t have the balls to argue for it directly, so you just kind of flirt with the subject.
You’re an awful person.
You are 'convinced' we are getting one because someone has challenged the fact that we might not be getting one.
This is @Gardenwalker lashing out because his neocortex is fighting with his brain stem.
(Or, to put it another way, iOS didn't happen by accident.)
Tories will want it not just for its own sake but because it is incompatible with rejoining.
https://twitter.com/Jordanfabian/status/1624125169789706240
In some ways pleasurable of course, to see absolute moral vacuums like HYUFD go down with the ship.
The issue is that the country needs a new direction YESTERDAY.
Personally I don't think being a massive twat meets the standard, so Harry lives, for now.
You know what happens when PB editorial staff take a break.
The middle class have always been more economically conservative than the working class but the working class have always been more socially conservative than the middle class
The good ones love feedback on the practicality of their designs and seek it out, then adapt to what works.
The bad ones get precious and stamp their feet when their artistic integrity is called into question.
Fortunately, there's no chance of it being brought back during my lifetime, at least.
But the fact that it's even deemed worthy of debate adds fuel to the regressive fire we've been playing with for some years now.
Pretty soon, I expect Lee Anderson to pop up and say "my teachers used to beat me to within an inch of my life, and it never did me any harm".
And HYUFD will write "actually, YouGov found that 58% of voters want the cane brought back for when kids are really, really naughty".
2 No being gay is not a problem
Sir Humphrey Appleby : What's the matter, Bernard?
Bernard Woolley : Oh nothing really, Sir Humphrey.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : You look unhappy.
Bernard Woolley : Well, I was just wondering if the minister was right, actually.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Very unlikely. What about?
Bernard Woolley : About ends and means. I mean, will I end up as a moral vacuum too?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Oh, I hope so, Bernard. If you work hard enough.
I don’t mind your counter-argument, and it’s a reasonable one.
I am more looking at what I think the Tories need to be doing to close the gaps, and seeing them not do it.
Also, I’m very persuaded by the uncanny alignment between the by-election result and the MRP poll.