We talk endlessly about Corbyn and his foreign policy problems.
This guy was literally in Number 10.
Tbf some of us were flagging up that he’s a total idiot and a thoroughly malign human being at the time.
I don't think Cummings is an idiot, but he vastly overestimates his abilities. Regarding his comments on Ukraine, they are very unwise, and evidence of bad judgement. But if Ukraine cannot make gains with all the support it has achieved, his realist view of the conflict may ultimately come to be vindicated.
It has made gains. Quite substantial ones.
Indeed, a year ago Kyiv and Kharkiv were in the same position that Bakhmut is in now, under threat of encirclement.
Ukraine cannot end the war though, that is completely in the hands of the genocidal aggressor.
I think the question posed by people like Cummings is how long can the west can back Ukraine without doing harm to itself. This is not a stupid question. 6 months ago people were on here saying 'Ukraine are going to beat back Russia right to its borders, take back Crimea' etc. But this does not now look like a realistic goal. Some serious contemplation of this problem needs to take place. If you keep repeating that "Russia has to be beaten and it is existential", and it is costing you billions every month, with punitive consequences for inflation hitting the poorest in society, and the whole thing is just a bloody stalemate, then it doesn't seem to me like a particularly good situation, however clear the moral cause is.
Supporting Ukraine is costing billions, but still only part of what Afghanistan and Iraq cost - and those were kept up for well over a decade. In return, the alleged second-greatest military in the world is being destroyed - without a cost in US or allied lives. It's actually quite cheap.
Then there are the costs of letting Russia 'win', or get a 'win'; the fact they will be back doing the same thing in a few years, with Russia or a.n.other rogue state emboldened by what has happened.
I'd also argue that it's perfectly possible for Ukraine to taker back control by pushing Russia out: even including Crimea. They may not, but last autumn showed they were capable of inflicting significant reverses on Russia. And unlike what some on here said, that involved pushing Russia right back to the border.
There's also the question of what this is doing to Russia, both economically and militarily. I was expecting a Russian push this spring, but it's looking increasingly likely that the attacks we've seen so far *were* the attack. If so, then the Russian military is in a really poor state.
I know the above seems rather optimistic, and will have Topping and Dura_Ace clutching at their pearls, but there may well be reasons to be optimistic.
There's a Yuri Yessopovich typing the exact opposite of this shit on a forum in Russia.
Why, in your mind, is it 'shit' ?
If you @ me it's much easier for me to see when you have name-checked me. I might have missed this.
All very interesting your commentary, but pure fantasy and, as you seem keen to avoid acknowledging, motivated by your historical determinism. What you think or hope might happen won't necessarily happen.
This is a betting website. The idea is to discuss what may happen in the future, and come up with scenarios. Something you seem rather hesitant to do, preferring to carp from the sidelines.
"carp from the sidelines" = not jumping (with two feet) to conclusions based upon scant and incomplete evidence.
I have only carped at people who set out "likely" courses of action of the war and who point to various Youtube clips as proof if proof be needed of their hypothesis. Some even use footage from video games to support their positions.
Are you saying it's unlikely? Impossible?
So what's your alternative?
What's my alternative? What do I think will happen in the Russia-Ukraine war?
LOL. I have absolutely no idea.
If you think because PB is a betting site you have an obligation to call the course of the war then go for your life. Know only that it is complete bollocks.
We can predict "likely" and unlikely outcomes, based on logic, reason and evidence.
And those who do so, whom you criticise, have been routinely shown to be correct. And the so-called self-named "realists" whom you don't seem to say boo to at all, have been routinely shown to be completely wrong.
Everything Josias said is reasonable, based entirely upon logic, reason and evidence before us. Not based on wishful thinking. The fact that you can't find a single thing to disagree with on a factual basis, so are resorting to nonsensical name-calling instead is because you are engaging in complete bollocks.
Absolutle bollocks. You all predict that this advance will run out of steam or that front is pushing forward or the other flanking move is likely to succeed.
You are all so far from understanding what might or might not happen in the war it is laughable. You have no idea about it aside from the odd youtube clip, online body/weapons count website, and some random General opining on R4.
You simply don't know.
Prominent strategic and military thinkers, experts on the region, have got this wrong since the war began but now I'm supposed to listen to @JosiasJessop.
That is not me name calling, it is me being "realistic", which, like "sceptic", I hadn't realised was now an insult.
Another good post – Jessop aspires to being king of the PB Toy Soldiers. The spectacle really makes one grit one's teeth.
From a male point of view, and when you're young, casual sex seems an excellent idea. Especially with the availability of antibiotics. Emotions are for when you grow up.
The contraceptive pill brought in female equality.
Yet I expect times to change again. Not to a new Puritanism, but something more measured.
'Wer hat Schuld, dass wir fremdgegangen sind?' 'Dat wor der Nubbel!'
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
Justifiable seems a bit of a weird word to use for some of these things. In what sense is homosexuality something that needs to be justified? The form of the question itself seems to demonstrate quite how far attitudes have changed.
Describing homosexuality as an "action" is bizarre. Unless the graph uses different wording to the question, which is always possible.
I think most people would assume the big change in attitudes was in the period 1997-2010, not 2010-present, so the findings are certainly interesting.
It's listed as 'Homosexuality'
'Please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card. (Read out and code one answer for each statement):
Q177 Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q178 Avoiding a fare on public transport 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q179 Stealing property 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q180 Cheating on taxes if you have a chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q181 Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q182 Homosexuality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q183 Prostitution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q184 Abortion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q185 Divorce 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q186 Sex before marriage 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q187 Suicide 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q188 Euthanasia 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q189 For a man to beat his wife 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q190 Parents beating children 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q191 Violence against other people 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q192 Terrorism as a political, ideological or religious mean 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q193 Having casual sex 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q194 Political violence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q195 Death penalty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10'
It's a pretty disturbing list, framing 'Homosexuality' as something immoral, like stealing or a man beating his wife. Didn't we have a header about dodgy polling the other day? This is a good example.
Muslims, evangelical Christians, conservative Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Jews would all see active homosexuality ie having sexual relations with someone of the same gender, as sinful.
Being of homosexual inclination but celibate would not be sinful for them however
Abortion, divorce, homosexuality, gay marriage, sex before marriage, adultery etc are all now legal so it really doesn't matter what the religious groups you mention think anymore. It only affects themselves these days, which is exactly as it should be.
Sex before marriage and adultery have always been legal in the UK, divorce has been legal for most since the 19th century (with adultery a grounds), abortion and homosexuality have been legal since the 1960s. Even homosexual marriage has been legal for 10 years.
However for the very religious all the above remain morally wrong, yes
They are free to believe in spaghetti monsters if they wish as long as they don't try to impose those beliefs on others.
In a free country if they get elected to Parliament and try to vote to make those things illegal they are entitled to do so, however they are unlikely to be able to persuade a majority in Parliament to support them to do that
Voting to force your religious requirements on others is a fairly unpleasant thing to do.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
I could probably buy 2 homes on my current wage up North rather than the one we have bought near Epping for the same price. I could probably have rented 2 flats in Manchester or Newcastle or Sunderland for the price I paid to rent 1 flat in Epping near the tube.
The facts are clear, UK wide 66% own property with a mortgage or outright. In inner London however just 42% own property with a mortgage or outright
🤦♂️
The facts are clear, UK wide 34% do not own property with a mortgage or outright. That is not good enough.
The average 25-30 year old in the North West, on the average North West 25-30 year old's wages, can not afford to buy a home on their own with a mortgage but without parental or other support on their own wages. They should be able to do so.
I'm originally from the midlands but I've lived in the South and the North, the latter for thirty years, and I'm still amused by their view of Londoners.
Chas and Dave are amusing, but most Londoners are rich and posh. They are paid massive amounts to do posh, do-nothing jobs, but like to lecture others. They live their lives commuting to these do-nothing jobs and are always complaining.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
Justifiable seems a bit of a weird word to use for some of these things. In what sense is homosexuality something that needs to be justified? The form of the question itself seems to demonstrate quite how far attitudes have changed.
Describing homosexuality as an "action" is bizarre. Unless the graph uses different wording to the question, which is always possible.
I think most people would assume the big change in attitudes was in the period 1997-2010, not 2010-present, so the findings are certainly interesting.
It's listed as 'Homosexuality'
'Please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card. (Read out and code one answer for each statement):
Q177 Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q178 Avoiding a fare on public transport 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q179 Stealing property 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q180 Cheating on taxes if you have a chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q181 Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q182 Homosexuality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q183 Prostitution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q184 Abortion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q185 Divorce 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q186 Sex before marriage 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q187 Suicide 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q188 Euthanasia 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q189 For a man to beat his wife 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q190 Parents beating children 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q191 Violence against other people 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q192 Terrorism as a political, ideological or religious mean 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q193 Having casual sex 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q194 Political violence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q195 Death penalty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10'
It's a pretty disturbing list, framing 'Homosexuality' as something immoral, like stealing or a man beating his wife. Didn't we have a header about dodgy polling the other day? This is a good example.
Muslims, evangelical Christians, conservative Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Jews would all see active homosexuality ie having sexual relations with someone of the same gender, as sinful.
Being of homosexual inclination but celibate would not be sinful for them however
Abortion, divorce, homosexuality, gay marriage, sex before marriage, adultery etc are all now legal so it really doesn't matter what the religious groups you mention think anymore. It only affects themselves these days, which is exactly as it should be.
Sex before marriage and adultery have always been legal in the UK, divorce has been legal for most since the 19th century (with adultery a grounds), abortion and homosexuality have been legal since the 1960s. Even homosexual marriage has been legal for 10 years.
However for the very religious all the above remain morally wrong, yes
Morals are of course available to the non-religious too. Though as others have noted, one of the above is not a choice.
I'm originally from the midlands but I've lived in the South and the North, the latter for thirty years, and I'm still amused by their view of Londoners.
Chas and Dave are amusing, but most Londoners are rich and posh. They are paid massive amounts to do posh, do-nothing jobs, but like to lecture others. They live their lives commuting to these do-nothing jobs and are always complaining.
A generalisation, but not that far off.
Between 1991 and 1995, I lived in London, including two years in Stepney and on the Isle of Dogs. In that time, I did not really hear any Cockney ryhming slang. even the stallholders down Whitechapel Market seemed to not speak Cockney rhyming slang (admittedly, most seemed to have been foreign-born).
I'd like to go back to Whitechapel and explore it a little - I haven't been there for a decade or so.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Its both cause and effect. It is a vicious positive reinforcement cycle.
Those who own beans already find it easier to get new beans, while campaigning to restrict total bean supply, so making it even tougher for those without a bean of their own to get a bean of their own. So those without beans are forced to pay the bean-owners rent, rent money which the bean-owners can use to purchase new beans - thus fuelling the cycle further.
We've been in a preposterous position for years now whereby its cheaper to pay a mortgage than it is to rent a home, meaning that people who can afford to take out a mortgage can take one out but not pay a penny of their own money toward the mortgage. Instead the mortgage is paid from the rent of those who are renting.
If someone is paying a mortgage that cost should be borne by themselves. If someone is able to afford to pay for a mortgage, then they should be able to pay for it in their own name, not via rent to somebody else's name.
Rent should not cover the interest let alone both the interest and capital repayments on a mortgage. The fact that it does, is because the housing market is completely broken which is self-reinforcing. If interest costs on mortgages became more than you could make from letting the property, we'd suddenly find an exodus of BTL mortgage holders and much more affordable housing even with the same property supply.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
I could probably buy 2 homes on my current wage up North rather than the one we have bought near Epping for the same price. I could probably have rented 2 flats in Manchester or Newcastle or Sunderland for the price I paid to rent 1 flat in Epping near the tube.
The facts are clear, UK wide 66% own property with a mortgage or outright. In inner London however just 42% own property with a mortgage or outright
'On your current wage' is the crucial phrase there. Someone on a nationally negotiated salary will do far better in the north than in the south.
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
Yesterday a jury of 10 men and two women, plus two men as reserve jurors until the end of the prosecution opening, were sworn in before trial judge Mrs Justice Amanda Yip.
@Sandpit, I don't think you realise just how much anger there is out there with the Conservatives. It's forgivable because you are a Dubai expat but I think the latter affects your judgement on this and clouds your analysis.
There is real, visceral, anger. A seachange occurred and it will not be reversed for a generation. That's how bad it is for brand tory.
Ah, playing the man again. Dare I suggest that, my experience of being around and talking to people in the UK, is much wider than those living in the very wealthy London suburbs (or is it Bangkok?) who are at least as insulated from the day-to-day concerns of the rest of the country.
Yesterday’s polling thread confirmed that most people think the government needs to do more to stop irregular immigration, to give one example.
On the other hand, I’m still not sure that Rishi Sunak, in his very insulated little world, thinks that talking and legislating - rather than actually stopping the boats - will endear him to those living in the marginal constituencies.
In Suburban Leicester, 2 patients, both lifelong Tory voters, spontaneously told me last week that they won't be voting Tory next time. I don't talk politics with patients as it isn't professional, so it truly was spontaneous.
I think Tories sub 200 seats, possibly sub 150. I don't think Sunak can turn it around.
Every seat in Leicester is Labour anyway. Claudia Webbe being an ex Labour Independent
Suburban Leicester might be in one of the surrounding seats, like Charnwood, or Harborough. The seats surrounding Leicester are:
Charnwood, Tory majority of 22,397 Rutland and Melton, Tory majority of 26,294 Harborough, Tory majority of 17,278 South Leicestershire, Tory majority of 24,004
Election Calculus predicts the Tories would be reduced to less than 175 seats if they lose seats like Harborough. Well below a hundred if Rutland and Melton falls. No idea how the boundary review is set to shake those up though.
Rutland certainly isn't Leicester, it isn't even in Leicestershire
Nevertheless, the constituency of Rutland and Melton borders one of the Leicester city seats and so includes areas that might be described as suburban Leicester.
Not for much longer. It will be (plus PPC selected):
Rutland, Stamford and the Stamford and Harborough Villages - Alicia Kearns Melton & Syston - Ed Argar
Melton and Syston sounds like something that would contain a lot more 'suburban Leicester' type voters than Melton and Rutland.
Yep it represents a North East corridor out from Leicester and Syston is between Melton and Leicester in that corridor.
Ah, I think I understand your previous post now - the constituency containing Rutland will no longer have anything bordering Leicester. The Melton & Syston constituency is probably still safe Conservative I guess.
Yes the core of it is Alan Duncan's old constituency which is one of the safest Cons seats in the country.
Rutland itself does have a habit of electing batshit independents at local level though. You'd think that the Westminster constituency would be immune, but who knows.
I was always slightly surprised (as someone who grew up first in the Wreake Valley, then in Rutland) that the LibDems didn't have more of a foothold in Rutland - it should be the sort of territory where they have a chance.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
St Albans is north of Watford.
A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.
@Sandpit, I don't think you realise just how much anger there is out there with the Conservatives. It's forgivable because you are a Dubai expat but I think the latter affects your judgement on this and clouds your analysis.
There is real, visceral, anger. A seachange occurred and it will not be reversed for a generation. That's how bad it is for brand tory.
Ah, playing the man again. Dare I suggest that, my experience of being around and talking to people in the UK, is much wider than those living in the very wealthy London suburbs (or is it Bangkok?) who are at least as insulated from the day-to-day concerns of the rest of the country.
Yesterday’s polling thread confirmed that most people think the government needs to do more to stop irregular immigration, to give one example.
On the other hand, I’m still not sure that Rishi Sunak, in his very insulated little world, thinks that talking and legislating - rather than actually stopping the boats - will endear him to those living in the marginal constituencies.
In Suburban Leicester, 2 patients, both lifelong Tory voters, spontaneously told me last week that they won't be voting Tory next time. I don't talk politics with patients as it isn't professional, so it truly was spontaneous.
I think Tories sub 200 seats, possibly sub 150. I don't think Sunak can turn it around.
Every seat in Leicester is Labour anyway. Claudia Webbe being an ex Labour Independent
Suburban Leicester might be in one of the surrounding seats, like Charnwood, or Harborough. The seats surrounding Leicester are:
Charnwood, Tory majority of 22,397 Rutland and Melton, Tory majority of 26,294 Harborough, Tory majority of 17,278 South Leicestershire, Tory majority of 24,004
Election Calculus predicts the Tories would be reduced to less than 175 seats if they lose seats like Harborough. Well below a hundred if Rutland and Melton falls. No idea how the boundary review is set to shake those up though.
Rutland certainly isn't Leicester, it isn't even in Leicestershire
Nevertheless, the constituency of Rutland and Melton borders one of the Leicester city seats and so includes areas that might be described as suburban Leicester.
Not for much longer. It will be (plus PPC selected):
Rutland, Stamford and the Stamford and Harborough Villages - Alicia Kearns Melton & Syston - Ed Argar
Melton and Syston sounds like something that would contain a lot more 'suburban Leicester' type voters than Melton and Rutland.
Yep it represents a North East corridor out from Leicester and Syston is between Melton and Leicester in that corridor.
Ah, I think I understand your previous post now - the constituency containing Rutland will no longer have anything bordering Leicester. The Melton & Syston constituency is probably still safe Conservative I guess.
Yes the core of it is Alan Duncan's old constituency which is one of the safest Cons seats in the country.
Rutland itself does have a habit of electing batshit independents at local level though. You'd think that the Westminster constituency would be immune, but who knows.
I was always slightly surprised (as someone who grew up first in the Wreake Valley, then in Rutland) that the LibDems didn't have more of a foothold in Rutland - it should be the sort of territory where they have a chance.
I think the LibDems would be seen as akin to the loony left. As you will know, Rutlanders don't go in for all that soft lad, woke, let's not hang 'em or flog 'em nonsense.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
I could probably buy 2 homes on my current wage up North rather than the one we have bought near Epping for the same price. I could probably have rented 2 flats in Manchester or Newcastle or Sunderland for the price I paid to rent 1 flat in Epping near the tube.
The facts are clear, UK wide 66% own property with a mortgage or outright. In inner London however just 42% own property with a mortgage or outright
'On your current wage' is the crucial phrase there. Someone on a nationally negotiated salary will do far better in the north than in the south.
Average wages in the North are only about 1.25 times those in the South, average property prices in the South are about double those in the North however and average property prices in London 3 times those in the North
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
Yesterday a jury of 10 men and two women, plus two men as reserve jurors until the end of the prosecution opening, were sworn in before trial judge Mrs Justice Amanda Yip.
The reserve jurors, or the sex breakdown? The latter is about a 1.5% chance given equal numbers of men and women in the jury pool and random selection.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
St Albans is north of Watford.
A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
Yesterday a jury of 10 men and two women, plus two men as reserve jurors until the end of the prosecution opening, were sworn in before trial judge Mrs Justice Amanda Yip.
The reserve jurors, or the sex breakdown? The latter is about a 1.5% chance given equal numbers of men and women in the jury pool and random selection.
Edit, I misread it.
There are 14 people in total. Makes sense, don't want this to have to be tried again because of illness or something.
It is quite frustrating to hear the same things again and again about housing.
1. BTL is over for the most part. Landlords are selling up because of increased costs and regulation. Few are going in to it. But it is this phenomenon this that is pushing up rents - supply dries up, demand doesn't, then rents go up, for which landlords get blamed. It is like hatred of the Kulaks.
2. In most parts of the UK private sector housebuilding has a natural limit because it is set by the amount of demand for new build properties which have a premium. You need to increase capacity through things like self build and affordable housing (like modular building) but on a massive, massive scale, along with Council housing, to increase the amount of houses being delivered.
The latter point is why I will vote labour. For as long as they are in power, the Conservatives will not seriously deal with the problem of the need to increase housebuilding. Labour can, because - as I have been explaining for years, they can just pass an act of parliament requiring a million houses to be built across all these constituencies where the political debate is dominated by Tories and the LD's fighting with each other over who will stop housebuilding.
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
I could probably buy 2 homes on my current wage up North rather than the one we have bought near Epping for the same price. I could probably have rented 2 flats in Manchester or Newcastle or Sunderland for the price I paid to rent 1 flat in Epping near the tube.
The facts are clear, UK wide 66% own property with a mortgage or outright. In inner London however just 42% own property with a mortgage or outright
'On your current wage' is the crucial phrase there. Someone on a nationally negotiated salary will do far better in the north than in the south.
Average wages in the North are only about 1.25 times those in the South, average property prices in the South are about double those in the North however and average property prices in London 3 times those in the North
Sorry, average wages in the South are only 1.25 times those in the North
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
The main reason for the housing crisis is that the population is 10 million higher than it was in the 1990s.
I’ve had sex where I literally could not name the girl the morning after, nor she me. And we never met again, nor wanted to. And it was superb
The zipless fuck as Erica Jong put it (a woman, btw). The holy grail of sex. The sheer animality of it is THE POINT
Of course you run a risk with casual sex. Getting involved despite yourself. Getting STDs. Etc
But any sex comes with a risk. Prolonged marital sex over time often ends up so forlorn and tedious it is like “occasional regrettable episodes of brother sister incest” - as Martin Amis brilliantly phrased it
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
YOu really are dumb, young people have always struggled to buy houses, it was mainlky social housing till Thatcher sold them off dirt cheap and caused the boom for Tory toffs to build up BTL portfolios and rip off the public purse. Just a transfer of the value of eth public housing stock to a handful of Tories.
Young people have not always struggled to buy houses, relative to today, that is factually incorrect and betrays your ignorance.
The BTL buildup that happened under Blair/Brown onwards is very problematic and needs addressing whether it be via taxation or failing that via extending Right to Buy to BTL tenants.
The BTL build up isn't the problem. It' the price of housing.
BTL is in part driving the price of housing, though, is it not?
It's more a side effect of the increasing prices. The classic is "he bought a flat in London, back in the day, she did the same". They get married, buy a house by extracting value, and rent out the flats. Because the rises in house prices make keeping property forever the best plan.
The problem isn't really people owning and renting flats. It's the prices and the constrained supply meaning that every shitbox can be rented out, no matter how bad, at a high price.
Imagine if the price of renting a house in the London suburbs was, say £250 a month for a 3 bedroom house. No one would give a shit about house prices/rents. Or who owned them.
Rent vs Ownership - it's just pushing the same pile of beans about. What we need is a lot more beans.
Again this is mainly a London problem and to a lesser extent a Home counties problem.
Go north of Watford and property prices and rents are far cheaper (though even in parts of Outer London and the Home counties like Dagenham or Bexley or East Kent or South Essex outside Brentwood and Epping Forest property prices are far cheaper)
Bullshit.
When was the last time you tried to buy a home up North on a Northern wage? Or tried to rent one?
Housing is a problem across the entire country. That its a more severe problem in London doesn't make it not a problem elsewhere.
Its like cancer. Just because someone else as a stage 4 terminal diagnosis doesn't mean that someone else with cancer should ignore it because they're better off. Quite the opposite in fact.
The main reason for the housing crisis is that the population is 10 million higher than it was in the 1990s.
Which is mainly down to immigration given the UK fertility rate is below replacement level.
Though we do need some more new affordable homes in London and the most expensive parts of the Home counties
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
If I recall correctly President Trump suggested something like this
He often had quite good ideas amidst the narcissistic madness
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
Yesterday a jury of 10 men and two women, plus two men as reserve jurors until the end of the prosecution opening, were sworn in before trial judge Mrs Justice Amanda Yip.
The reserve jurors, or the sex breakdown? The latter is about a 1.5% chance given equal numbers of men and women in the jury pool and random selection.
Edit, I misread it.
There are 14 people in total. Makes sense, don't want this to have to be tried again because of illness or something.
I think it's fairly common to have reserve jurors now on important cases for the reason you state (and also on harrowing trials if there are reserves then if a juror is struggling they can drop out without feeling responsible for the collapse of the trial). I can't immediately find much information online but it appears to have been a Cameron-era innovation.
Just for information (whatever you do don't comment on PB) if anyone wants to follow the Liverpool trial this is a useful site, so far constantly updated:
It is quite frustrating to hear the same things again and again about housing.
1. BTL is over for the most part. Landlords are selling up because of increased costs and regulation. Few are going in to it. But it is this phenomenon this that is pushing up rents - supply dries up, demand doesn't, then rents go up, for which landlords get blamed. It is like hatred of the Kulaks.
2. In most parts of the UK private sector housebuilding has a natural limit because it is set by the amount of demand for new build properties which have a premium. You need to increase capacity through things like self build and affordable housing (like modular building) but on a massive, massive scale, along with Council housing, to increase the amount of houses being delivered.
The latter point is why I will vote labour. For as long as they are in power, the Conservatives will not seriously deal with the problem of the need to increase housebuilding. Labour can, because - as I have been explaining for years, they can just pass an act of parliament requiring a million houses to be built across all these constituencies where the political debate is dominated by Tories and the LD's fighting with each other over who will stop housebuilding.
They can try. It'll get snarled up in the courts and then at the next election, tactical voting will be harder to come by...
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
Blanket disapproval does seem a bit off though. There's all kinds of reasons for people having casual sex, some good, some bad, some indifferent.
It's like someone saying they disapprove of people not having sex, choosing to live alone. Or someone saying they disapprove of people not having their own children. Even if you think that for 'most people' getting married and having children will deliver happiness and fulfillment in their lives, would you 'disapprove' of people who live differently?
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
That was Trump’s basic idea, yes. Given that America’s life expectancy is now below China’s and Thailand’s - mainly (but not entirely) because of drugs imported by the cartels you can see the logic
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
Social conservatives and the very religious would also prefer only a few sexual partners over a lifetime and ideally just one in lifelong marriage as much as the Puritan left would.
Indeed they would have more in common with each other on that than with rightwing libertarians or leftwing social liberals
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
You're likening me to the Khmer Rouge, and I'm the one who's mad? Okay.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
That was Trump’s basic idea, yes. Given that America’s life expectancy is now below China’s and Thailand’s - mainly (but not entirely) because of drugs imported by the cartels you can see the logic
Don't forget the USA-produced drugs like OxyContin.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
We talk endlessly about Corbyn and his foreign policy problems.
This guy was literally in Number 10.
Tbf some of us were flagging up that he’s a total idiot and a thoroughly malign human being at the time.
I don't think Cummings is an idiot, but he vastly overestimates his abilities. Regarding his comments on Ukraine, they are very unwise, and evidence of bad judgement. But if Ukraine cannot make gains with all the support it has achieved, his realist view of the conflict may ultimately come to be vindicated.
It has made gains. Quite substantial ones.
Indeed, a year ago Kyiv and Kharkiv were in the same position that Bakhmut is in now, under threat of encirclement.
Ukraine cannot end the war though, that is completely in the hands of the genocidal aggressor.
I think the question posed by people like Cummings is how long can the west can back Ukraine without doing harm to itself. This is not a stupid question. 6 months ago people were on here saying 'Ukraine are going to beat back Russia right to its borders, take back Crimea' etc. But this does not now look like a realistic goal. Some serious contemplation of this problem needs to take place. If you keep repeating that "Russia has to be beaten and it is existential", and it is costing you billions every month, with punitive consequences for inflation hitting the poorest in society, and the whole thing is just a bloody stalemate, then it doesn't seem to me like a particularly good situation, however clear the moral cause is.
Supporting Ukraine is costing billions, but still only part of what Afghanistan and Iraq cost - and those were kept up for well over a decade. In return, the alleged second-greatest military in the world is being destroyed - without a cost in US or allied lives. It's actually quite cheap.
Then there are the costs of letting Russia 'win', or get a 'win'; the fact they will be back doing the same thing in a few years, with Russia or a.n.other rogue state emboldened by what has happened.
I'd also argue that it's perfectly possible for Ukraine to taker back control by pushing Russia out: even including Crimea. They may not, but last autumn showed they were capable of inflicting significant reverses on Russia. And unlike what some on here said, that involved pushing Russia right back to the border.
There's also the question of what this is doing to Russia, both economically and militarily. I was expecting a Russian push this spring, but it's looking increasingly likely that the attacks we've seen so far *were* the attack. If so, then the Russian military is in a really poor state.
I know the above seems rather optimistic, and will have Topping and Dura_Ace clutching at their pearls, but there may well be reasons to be optimistic.
There's a Yuri Yessopovich typing the exact opposite of this shit on a forum in Russia.
Why, in your mind, is it 'shit' ?
If you @ me it's much easier for me to see when you have name-checked me. I might have missed this.
All very interesting your commentary, but pure fantasy and, as you seem keen to avoid acknowledging, motivated by your historical determinism. What you think or hope might happen won't necessarily happen.
This is a betting website. The idea is to discuss what may happen in the future, and come up with scenarios. Something you seem rather hesitant to do, preferring to carp from the sidelines.
"carp from the sidelines" = not jumping (with two feet) to conclusions based upon scant and incomplete evidence.
I have only carped at people who set out "likely" courses of action of the war and who point to various Youtube clips as proof if proof be needed of their hypothesis. Some even use footage from video games to support their positions.
Are you saying it's unlikely? Impossible?
So what's your alternative?
What's my alternative? What do I think will happen in the Russia-Ukraine war?
LOL. I have absolutely no idea.
If you think because PB is a betting site you have an obligation to call the course of the war then go for your life. Know only that it is complete bollocks.
We can predict "likely" and unlikely outcomes, based on logic, reason and evidence.
And those who do so, whom you criticise, have been routinely shown to be correct. And the so-called self-named "realists" whom you don't seem to say boo to at all, have been routinely shown to be completely wrong.
Everything Josias said is reasonable, based entirely upon logic, reason and evidence before us. Not based on wishful thinking. The fact that you can't find a single thing to disagree with on a factual basis, so are resorting to nonsensical name-calling instead is because you are engaging in complete bollocks.
Prominent strategic and military thinkers, experts on the region, have got this wrong since the war began but now I'm supposed to listen to @JosiasJessop.
(Snip)
Just adding: I've never claimed to be an expert. I'm not one. If you want to 'educate' me why I'm wrong, then I'm all for a good, healthy and educational debate. But that's not what you seem to want to do. But screeching "pure fantasy" is *not* a good response.
Listen to me, or don't listen to me: that's your choice. But I'll keep on posting what I think *may* happen; feel free to join in. You might even contribute something.
Sorry just saw this.
So indeed you are not even an expert. Jeez.
Look of course you can carry on posting on the subject on PB. Go for it. Just like Leon and his Bangkok experiences, and HYUFD and his views on the military excursions up the A1(M).
It's PB. We love all that shit.
But don't expect people not to call you, a self-acknowledged non-expert, out about it all.
Oh and I love the "carp from the sidelines" line. Where are you posting your dispatches from?
I say "carp from the sidelines" because your posts are just attack posts, containing no information. You say: "You're wrong!", without actually saying *why* I'm wrong. In fact, during this entire conversation I don't think you've added anything of substance.
I freely admit that the scenario I gave above may not - and even probably will not - happen. But it's a better guess than the non-existent ones you have given us. It's a position we can discuss and argue - but that's not what you're doing.
I believe you're ex-army, in which case you're probably sitting there thinking you're an expert compared to me. And you may be, but there's no sign of expertise, or even intelligence, in your replies.
To be fair to Topping I think he’s made it clear that even though he’s ex army he is no expert on Ukraine war scenarios (see also Dura Ace) despite knowing the tactics of maybe an anti-tank infantry platoon as was from his days in the army. I think him having been in the army probably makes him less tolerant of people opining about military options when there are plenty of people who are making these decisions with all the info who cannot find a solution at present.
So when he reads ideas such as the Ukrainian forces driving through the south to cut off the Russian forces I’m guessing he, like I do, has a bit of a head/desk moment where one thinks “I’m sure if they could do they they would do that”. It’s the old no plan survives contact with the enemy/no plan survives a smack in the face situation and looking at a map might suggest it’s a plan but the fact is we don’t know what troops each side have where and then small matters of geography and terrain which make a massive difference.
So I understand your interest and wanting to dig into things, I think sometimes it’s hopecasting but I also get where Topping is coming from - however I might have got Topping’s position wrong and so am also guilty of opining on the internet about something where I’ve just picked up a few facts.
It's the old "don't read a non-expert source on something you know about" problem. Plenty of complete bollocks posted on here during Covid, too, and I was in the Topping-esque position of knowing just enough to know how much I didn't know/how unpredictable things were, but still know that some of the stats/epi mangling was complete nonsense.
But, we all post on a lot of things we know nothing about, which is no doubt annoying to those who know more - see also the 'PB Scotch experts' frustrations. For the most part, this doesn't really bother me and I hope I don't bother others too much with my inane opinions.*
FWIW though, I value @TOPPING and @Dura_Ace contributions on the Ukraine war, pointing out some of the errors in what people are posting and giving a different perspective.
*On being a Scotch expert, I look set to lose some money on the next First Minister - I managed some good trades on Yousaf and Forbes, but have some stranded assets on Regan at what I thought looked an attractive price - luckily no more than a London measure of single malt down, overall, even in worst case.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
That was Trump’s basic idea, yes. Given that America’s life expectancy is now below China’s and Thailand’s - mainly (but not entirely) because of drugs imported by the cartels you can see the logic
You can ? Invading a neighbour isn't likely to do much for either the quality or length of life of your populace.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
Do you mean during sex?
Frowned upon during casual sex, but I think it's ok in a committed relationship.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
You're likening me to the Khmer Rouge, and I'm the one who's mad? Okay.
Well, the Khmer Rouge definitely “disapproved” of casual sex - like you. Could get you hacked to death for being too happy. You do choose some strange bedfellows. Not that anything then happens in that bed
It’s at this point I remember you’re the guy who is scared of going abroad because you “don’t like driving on the wrong side of the road” and it all makes total sense
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Well, I personally try not to do juggling whilst having sex. It's a bit distracting.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
Do you mean during sex?
That's just a transparent ploy to reduce Leon's posting.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
This question is long overdue an RCT, surely.
Hard to blind the participants though, unless you get all kinky with blindfolds, I guess...
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Is that another of these euphemisms prevalent in military circles? Dare I google it?
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Well, I personally try not to do juggling whilst having sex. It's a bit distracting.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Well, I personally try not to do juggling whilst having sex. It's a bit distracting.
It's only a question of how many balls you can manage at once.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Is that another of these euphemisms prevalent in military circles? Dare I google it?
It's like that parlour game where you have to say a word which is designed not to make anyone laugh.
Strikes me that the Small Boats bill is about 75% calculated to give the Tories a line against the ECHR at the next GE and 25% towards helping Cruella’s 2024 leadership ambitions.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Well, I personally try not to do juggling whilst having sex. It's a bit distracting.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
Blanket disapproval does seem a bit off though.
Well, I approve of blankets. As long as they aren't too scratchy, mind.
I’ve had sex where I literally could not name the girl the morning after, nor she me. And we never met again, nor wanted to. And it was superb
The zipless fuck as Erica Jong put it (a woman, btw). The holy grail of sex. The sheer animality of it is THE POINT
Of course you run a risk with casual sex. Getting involved despite yourself. Getting STDs. Etc
But any sex comes with a risk. Prolonged marital sex over time often ends up so forlorn and tedious it is like “occasional regrettable episodes of brother sister incest” - as Martin Amis brilliantly phrased it
Ha, ha - that is absolutely brilliant from Martin Amis!
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
What a bizarre post.
What's your position on juggling?
Well, I personally try not to do juggling whilst having sex. It's a bit distracting.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
Simple. Legalise and control.
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels - the drug dealers - the Republicans - Putin - The Lib Dem’s
Strikes me that the Small Boats bill is about 75% calculated to give the Tories a line against the ECHR at the next GE and 25% towards helping Cruella’s 2024 leadership ambitions.
If it were me, I would not be trusting this to Suella Braverman. Her ability is spectacularly limited.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
That was Trump’s basic idea, yes. Given that America’s life expectancy is now below China’s and Thailand’s - mainly (but not entirely) because of drugs imported by the cartels you can see the logic
You can ? Invading a neighbour isn't likely to do much for either the quality or length of life of your populace.
IIRC, during America's involvement in Afghanistan, it was calculated (by the Economist) that for some groups, going to war increased their life expectancy, health etc.
Young African American gentlemen from the less wealthy sections of LA or Chicago, for example.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
Simple. Legalise and control.
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels - the drug dealers - the Republicans - Putin - The Lib Dem’s
Perhaps bring the whole sector into public ownership. That way we can have price controls - eg charge according to ability to pay - and all profit goes to schools and hospitals. And given the product is toxic set a long term business plan not for expansion but decline.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
Simple. Legalise and control.
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels - the drug dealers - the Republicans - Putin - The Lib Dem’s
Perhaps bring the whole sector into public ownership. That way we can have price controls - eg charge according to ability to pay - and all profit goes to schools and hospitals. And given the product is toxic set a long term business plan not for expansion but decline.
Then you make the government dependent on the tax money.
In countries where the state controls cigarette sales, guess what?
We talk endlessly about Corbyn and his foreign policy problems.
This guy was literally in Number 10.
Tbf some of us were flagging up that he’s a total idiot and a thoroughly malign human being at the time.
I don't think Cummings is an idiot, but he vastly overestimates his abilities. Regarding his comments on Ukraine, they are very unwise, and evidence of bad judgement. But if Ukraine cannot make gains with all the support it has achieved, his realist view of the conflict may ultimately come to be vindicated.
It has made gains. Quite substantial ones.
Indeed, a year ago Kyiv and Kharkiv were in the same position that Bakhmut is in now, under threat of encirclement.
Ukraine cannot end the war though, that is completely in the hands of the genocidal aggressor.
I think the question posed by people like Cummings is how long can the west can back Ukraine without doing harm to itself. This is not a stupid question. 6 months ago people were on here saying 'Ukraine are going to beat back Russia right to its borders, take back Crimea' etc. But this does not now look like a realistic goal. Some serious contemplation of this problem needs to take place. If you keep repeating that "Russia has to be beaten and it is existential", and it is costing you billions every month, with punitive consequences for inflation hitting the poorest in society, and the whole thing is just a bloody stalemate, then it doesn't seem to me like a particularly good situation, however clear the moral cause is.
Supporting Ukraine is costing billions, but still only part of what Afghanistan and Iraq cost - and those were kept up for well over a decade. In return, the alleged second-greatest military in the world is being destroyed - without a cost in US or allied lives. It's actually quite cheap.
Then there are the costs of letting Russia 'win', or get a 'win'; the fact they will be back doing the same thing in a few years, with Russia or a.n.other rogue state emboldened by what has happened.
I'd also argue that it's perfectly possible for Ukraine to taker back control by pushing Russia out: even including Crimea. They may not, but last autumn showed they were capable of inflicting significant reverses on Russia. And unlike what some on here said, that involved pushing Russia right back to the border.
There's also the question of what this is doing to Russia, both economically and militarily. I was expecting a Russian push this spring, but it's looking increasingly likely that the attacks we've seen so far *were* the attack. If so, then the Russian military is in a really poor state.
I know the above seems rather optimistic, and will have Topping and Dura_Ace clutching at their pearls, but there may well be reasons to be optimistic.
There's a Yuri Yessopovich typing the exact opposite of this shit on a forum in Russia.
Why, in your mind, is it 'shit' ?
If you @ me it's much easier for me to see when you have name-checked me. I might have missed this.
All very interesting your commentary, but pure fantasy and, as you seem keen to avoid acknowledging, motivated by your historical determinism. What you think or hope might happen won't necessarily happen.
This is a betting website. The idea is to discuss what may happen in the future, and come up with scenarios. Something you seem rather hesitant to do, preferring to carp from the sidelines.
"carp from the sidelines" = not jumping (with two feet) to conclusions based upon scant and incomplete evidence.
I have only carped at people who set out "likely" courses of action of the war and who point to various Youtube clips as proof if proof be needed of their hypothesis. Some even use footage from video games to support their positions.
Are you saying it's unlikely? Impossible?
So what's your alternative?
What's my alternative? What do I think will happen in the Russia-Ukraine war?
LOL. I have absolutely no idea.
If you think because PB is a betting site you have an obligation to call the course of the war then go for your life. Know only that it is complete bollocks.
We can predict "likely" and unlikely outcomes, based on logic, reason and evidence.
And those who do so, whom you criticise, have been routinely shown to be correct. And the so-called self-named "realists" whom you don't seem to say boo to at all, have been routinely shown to be completely wrong.
Everything Josias said is reasonable, based entirely upon logic, reason and evidence before us. Not based on wishful thinking. The fact that you can't find a single thing to disagree with on a factual basis, so are resorting to nonsensical name-calling instead is because you are engaging in complete bollocks.
Prominent strategic and military thinkers, experts on the region, have got this wrong since the war began but now I'm supposed to listen to @JosiasJessop.
(Snip)
Just adding: I've never claimed to be an expert. I'm not one. If you want to 'educate' me why I'm wrong, then I'm all for a good, healthy and educational debate. But that's not what you seem to want to do. But screeching "pure fantasy" is *not* a good response.
Listen to me, or don't listen to me: that's your choice. But I'll keep on posting what I think *may* happen; feel free to join in. You might even contribute something.
Sorry just saw this.
So indeed you are not even an expert. Jeez.
Look of course you can carry on posting on the subject on PB. Go for it. Just like Leon and his Bangkok experiences, and HYUFD and his views on the military excursions up the A1(M).
It's PB. We love all that shit.
But don't expect people not to call you, a self-acknowledged non-expert, out about it all.
Oh and I love the "carp from the sidelines" line. Where are you posting your dispatches from?
I say "carp from the sidelines" because your posts are just attack posts, containing no information. You say: "You're wrong!", without actually saying *why* I'm wrong. In fact, during this entire conversation I don't think you've added anything of substance.
I freely admit that the scenario I gave above may not - and even probably will not - happen. But it's a better guess than the non-existent ones you have given us. It's a position we can discuss and argue - but that's not what you're doing.
I believe you're ex-army, in which case you're probably sitting there thinking you're an expert compared to me. And you may be, but there's no sign of expertise, or even intelligence, in your replies.
To be fair to Topping I think he’s made it clear that even though he’s ex army he is no expert on Ukraine war scenarios (see also Dura Ace) despite knowing the tactics of maybe an anti-tank infantry platoon as was from his days in the army. I think him having been in the army probably makes him less tolerant of people opining about military options when there are plenty of people who are making these decisions with all the info who cannot find a solution at present.
So when he reads ideas such as the Ukrainian forces driving through the south to cut off the Russian forces I’m guessing he, like I do, has a bit of a head/desk moment where one thinks “I’m sure if they could do they they would do that”. It’s the old no plan survives contact with the enemy/no plan survives a smack in the face situation and looking at a map might suggest it’s a plan but the fact is we don’t know what troops each side have where and then small matters of geography and terrain which make a massive difference.
So I understand your interest and wanting to dig into things, I think sometimes it’s hopecasting but I also get where Topping is coming from - however I might have got Topping’s position wrong and so am also guilty of opining on the internet about something where I’ve just picked up a few facts.
It's the old "don't read a non-expert source on something you know about" problem. Plenty of complete bollocks posted on here during Covid, too, and I was in the Topping-esque position of knowing just enough to know how much I didn't know/how unpredictable things were, but still know that some of the stats/epi mangling was complete nonsense.
But, we all post on a lot of things we know nothing about, which is no doubt annoying to those who know more - see also the 'PB Scotch experts' frustrations. For the most part, this doesn't really bother me and I hope I don't bother others too much with my inane opinions.*
We just need the SMO bollocks to get us through to the 2024 GE and US Presidential. Cozzie Livs, informal immigrants on pedalos, arsing around with the Brexit arrangement for the 6C, etc. are all as boring as fucking shit.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Can I suggest anywhere other than Leicester or East Ham, just to ring the changes? I’m not hugely fussy!
We end up talking about Leicester and East Ham because a couple of our regular posters live in those places and talk about them.
We talk about other places when people say something about them. So, say something about somewhere else.
Hot news from the island - council contractors dumped a large pile of building materials, needed to do an emergency repair on the water main, onto flowers planted by Ventnor’s volunteer guerilla-gardener ‘flower fairy’, forcing the town council to promise to pay for replacing the flowers once the water board work is done.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
Sometimes you make it a bit too obvious you're copying and pasting from Wikipedia.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
Sometimes you make it a bit too obvious you're copying and pasting from Wikipedia.
No, none of that was copied and pasted I lived there until Christmas.
Plus Copped Hall, which is being restored and once hosted Elizabeth I
The latter policy (fast track) is sensible. People from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Eritrea and the like will almost inevitably succeed in their asylum claims so why clog up the system with them? Conversely, claims from the likes of Albania have very poor prospects and should again be brought to a swift conclusion with action taken on removal.
Why should they succeed, though?
Are we obliged to take in anyone from any really poor/crap country who makes it to our shores. There are hundreds of millions of such people.
On this I think the fundamentals of the question hinge.
We cannot house all our own people. Sooner or later the "We are full up" sign will have to go up.
But why can't we house everyone?
It's not lack of land and it's not lack of money to buy bricks or pay builders.
It's just that we don't want to build stuff. And that works less well as an excuse.
This.
The policy of not building houses to match population is institutionally racist, incidentally.
Everything is racist if you can find an excuse for it to be so. Its more likely to be racist against the wwc.
The main issue is probably old vs. young. Older WWC people who bought their council houses under Maggie are sitting relatively prettily.
Does the UK's racial mix look different for young and old people?
I think that the intersection of age and racial demographics are an underappreciated source of some of the political dynamics in this country. In a lot of ways the defining difference between Baby Boomers and Millenials or Gen Z is how racially diverse the latter groups are compared to the former. I think this helps to explain the lack of understanding, perhaps even lack of empathy, between the generations. It probably helps to account for the intensified political polarisation by age for one thing, as well as the politics of housing.
Since race is not a very polarising political issue in this country (unlike America) I still think its housing, not race, that's the key issue in the UK.
Thank goodness we aren't like America where everything boils down to race.
As I already posted the vast majority in the UK as in the US own property, only in inner London like inner New York City do most rent.
The difference in the UK has historically been class more than race.
Though increasingly there is more of an age difference in both
The fact that most own their property, because property was affordable when old people were young, is utterly irrelevant and not the killer point you think it is.
Most young people should be able to afford a house. They can't. That's a problem and it needs solving urgently.
By 39 most have bought a property in the UK, at least with a mortgage.
Now ideally that would be nearer 30 but 39 is not old, indeed at most it is young middle age
39 is far, far, far too old, it is past the age that it is safest to start having children.
People should be able to afford a home by 25, so they can settle down and have children.
Given the average age of first marriage and first child is now nearer 35 than 25 in the UK most people will happily rent throughout their 20s now and only seek to buy property and start a family in their 30s.
Women now want to go to university and have careers, most don't want to leave school and become mothers immediately
They will. But they will do so because they have no other option. I have never "happily" rented.
Most of the top graduates all want to work and rent in inner London though their 20s.
Only once they hit 30 will most of them consider marriage and starting a family and settling down moving out to suburban London or the Home counties to buy a property. They will mostly never be able to afford to buy property in inner London anyway
Seems unlikely most of them will be able to afford to buy anywhere in the South East.
If you work for a bank, a corporate law firm or a consultancy or for Google or Facebook etc in inner London you can easily afford to buy a property in the South East. Especially if you both do
Bank counter staff and toilet cleaners can afford Home Counties houses without inheriting?
Since when were most of them graduates? My original point that top graduates want to rent in inner London in their 20s then only settle down and move to the Home counties in their 30s stands absolutely
You said "If you work for a bank, [...] in inner London you can easily afford to buy a property in the South East." That includes all people who work for banks.
His earlier post in the thread referenced "top graduates". While some of them may end up as toilet cleaners, I doubt that's the norm.
Depends.. many graduates failed to get into Cambridge... 🤣
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
But are there any cosy cafes where one might knit with tea and a scone?
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
You're likening me to the Khmer Rouge, and I'm the one who's mad? Okay.
Well, the Khmer Rouge definitely “disapproved” of casual sex - like you. Could get you hacked to death for being too happy. You do choose some strange bedfellows. Not that anything then happens in that bed
It’s at this point I remember you’re the guy who is scared of going abroad because you “don’t like driving on the wrong side of the road” and it all makes total sense
The Khmer Rouge drive on the right though don't they? And you don't mind driving on the right. This means that you are literally the Khmer Rouge.
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
Justifiable seems a bit of a weird word to use for some of these things. In what sense is homosexuality something that needs to be justified? The form of the question itself seems to demonstrate quite how far attitudes have changed.
Describing homosexuality as an "action" is bizarre. Unless the graph uses different wording to the question, which is always possible.
I think most people would assume the big change in attitudes was in the period 1997-2010, not 2010-present, so the findings are certainly interesting.
It's listed as 'Homosexuality'
'Please tell me for each of the following actions whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between, using this card. (Read out and code one answer for each statement):
Q177 Claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q178 Avoiding a fare on public transport 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q179 Stealing property 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q180 Cheating on taxes if you have a chance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q181 Someone accepting a bribe in the course of their duties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q182 Homosexuality 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q183 Prostitution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q184 Abortion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q185 Divorce 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q186 Sex before marriage 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q187 Suicide 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q188 Euthanasia 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q189 For a man to beat his wife 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q190 Parents beating children 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q191 Violence against other people 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q192 Terrorism as a political, ideological or religious mean 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q193 Having casual sex 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q194 Political violence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q195 Death penalty 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10'
It's a pretty disturbing list, framing 'Homosexuality' as something immoral, like stealing or a man beating his wife. Didn't we have a header about dodgy polling the other day? This is a good example.
Muslims, evangelical Christians, conservative Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Jews would all see active homosexuality ie having sexual relations with someone of the same gender, as sinful.
Being of homosexual inclination but celibate would not be sinful for them however
Abortion, divorce, homosexuality, gay marriage, sex before marriage, adultery etc are all now legal so it really doesn't matter what the religious groups you mention think anymore. It only affects themselves these days, which is exactly as it should be.
Depends if you live in an area dominated by such people or grow up in such a family
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
But are there any cosy cafes where one might knit with tea and a scone?
Plenty, including on the recreation ground which does cream teas
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
Simple. Legalise and control.
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels - the drug dealers - the Republicans - Putin - The Lib Dem’s
I thought it was the top Conservatives were were up to their eyes in hard drugs..... Is that not true? And if not, why do I have that impression?
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
Blanket disapproval does seem a bit off though. There's all kinds of reasons for people having casual sex, some good, some bad, some indifferent.
It's like someone saying they disapprove of people not having sex, choosing to live alone. Or someone saying they disapprove of people not having their own children. Even if you think that for 'most people' getting married and having children will deliver happiness and fulfillment in their lives, would you 'disapprove' of people who live differently?
I was trying to explain why you might find a lot of people expressing a disapproving attitude towards casual sex, in the context of the survey quoted down thread. I'd never seek to stop people doing whatever they want to but at the same time I think that certain patterns of behaviour are better for people's long term wellbeing than others. Isn't it a bit woke to start telling people that they're not allowed to have opinions about things?
New: it's easy to forget quite how far and recently GB has changed in social attitudes: - in 2009 just 33% thought homosexuality was justifiable, 66% now - divorce went from 30% to 64% - casual sex from 12% to 42% - abortion from 20% to 48%
So 58% still think casual sex morally unjustifiable and 52% think abortion morally unjustifiable.
That is actually far higher than I would have thought would be the case in the UK of 2023. Maybe hope for Jacob Rees Mogg and Kate Forbes yet?
Read the small print. 58% gave casual sex a score of 7 or lower on a 10-point scale where 1 was always unjustifiable and 10 was always justifiable.
We don't know how many people gave a score of 3-7, but we can be confident that some people will have done so, and that they wouldn't agree with your interpretation of their answer.
Even a score of 5 for casual sex would be far lower than I would have expected in the UK of 2023 and Tinder etc
Why? This survey says that 90% of British people think that 'casual sex' is either sometimes or always justifiable. A plurality (25%) of people say it is 'Always justifiable'. If anything those figures are higher than I would have expected.
Only 25% saying casual sex is always justifiable is astonishingly low for the supposedly live and let live, secular and socially liberal UK we now live in
What? I am very surprised that a full 25% of people can't think of any circumstances in which casual sex isn't justifiable: I suspect that most of those 25% just put 'Always' (rather than 9 or 8) as a reaction against the 10% of annoying moralisers who say it's never justified, rather than because they genuinely couldn't think of any context in which casual sex could be wrong.
Yes I'm a pretty liberal kind of chap but I don't really approve of casual sex. I think it's best to only have sex with people you are in a committed loving relationship with or at least planning to be. I wouldn't try to stop other people from doing it of course, even if I thought that was possible, which it isn't.
This is the opinion of a man unable to actually get casual sex
I have no interest in getting casual sex, I'm married!
What is it about casual sex that you object to?
Is it the horrendous idea that two adult consenting people might enjoy intense/amusing/kinky/frivolous physical intimacy without the laborious need for any more significant or prolonged emotional connection? Is it the fact they might both have a really good time (or not, but you always take risk) and want to do it again with someone else who is also hot?
Or is it the fact that you basically never got any, as a young man, and this REALLY fucks you off?
I suspect the latter
Ha ha, I'm not going to go into the details of my sex life other than to say I have had nothing to complain about. Personally I think sex without love or the prospect of it seems like a rather empty experience. But if it's your thing nobody is stopping you, least of all me!
But you actually use the words “I don’t really approve of casual sex” - like it’s any of your damn business
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
Well I don't approve of it. I agree with you that what other people do is none of my damn business. I just don't think it's a course of action that will deliver most people happiness and fulfillment in their lives in the long term. If that's a peculiar attitude then apologies.
This just gets weirder. What course of action “delivers most people happiness in the long term” - 3.4 sexual partners in a lifetime followed by a faithful marriage where the sex dies in your 40s but you still chat? Is that better? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
One way to be happy is not to use social media and smartphones.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
How is that going to work? Just invade Mexico in an SMO?
I think if the US military just drive hard towards the south they can cut the Mexicans off from their drug supply lines and win the war on drugs. Or something.
Simple. Legalise and control.
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels - the drug dealers - the Republicans - Putin - The Lib Dem’s
I thought it was the top Conservatives were were up to their eyes in hard drugs..... Is that not true? And if not, why do I have that impression?
It's only those who aren't using drugs who are in a position to see how unworkable and how utterly failing our current drug policy is.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
Sometimes you make it a bit too obvious you're copying and pasting from Wikipedia.
No, none of that was copied and pasted I lived there until Christmas.
Plus Copped Hall, which is being restored and once hosted Elizabeth I
You definitely deleted the "[Citation needed]" bit from the second comment, though. Admit it.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
But are there any cosy cafes where one might knit with tea and a scone?
Plenty, including on the recreation ground which does cream teas
This is the sort of local knowledge that is invaluable, because looking at Google maps I can only see two recreation grounds around Epping, and neither of them seem to have a cafe selling cream teas. Where would this be then?
Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
Sometimes you make it a bit too obvious you're copying and pasting from Wikipedia.
Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.
Tell us something we haven't mentioned on here multiple times before.
Grammar schools will take brighter children from outside the local authority in preference to poorer children locally.
What happens is that the pupils from outside the area reduces the number of available spaces.
Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.
Presumably some references to the sectarian preferences of the Pope and the defecatory habits of bears too.
@Sandpit, I don't think you realise just how much anger there is out there with the Conservatives. It's forgivable because you are a Dubai expat but I think the latter affects your judgement on this and clouds your analysis.
There is real, visceral, anger. A seachange occurred and it will not be reversed for a generation. That's how bad it is for brand tory.
I remember in 1999/00 one of the TV stations asked the Ad agency TBWA to come up with a campaign that could make the Tories electable again. They put several teams on it and all decided they'd needed to start from the beginning with a new corporate identity and a new name.
Then after several days deliberation they concluded it wasn't salvageable. In fact they turned out to be correct. David Cameron with the help of Steve Hilton created a party that was barely recognisable from the one that collapsed in '97.
I often wondered whether without Iraq they might have have had to wait for at least another five years.
We discuss Leicester and East Ham – two of the most mundane places on Earth – more on this forum than all other locales in the UK combined.
I'm happy to talk about other places instead. Where would you suggest was more interesting to talk about? Could you perhaps get us started?
Epping is very nice! 👍
I have never been to Epping. What am I missing out on?
Epping Forest, a 19th century church and Medieval church in nearby Epping Upland, the Town show in July and Christmas market, a green where Churchill regularly spoke from and an excellent butchers
But are there any cosy cafes where one might knit with tea and a scone?
Plenty, including on the recreation ground which does cream teas
This is the sort of local knowledge that is invaluable, because looking at Google maps I can only see two recreation grounds around Epping, and neither of them seem to have a cafe selling cream teas. Where would this be then?
By way of a fair knowledge exchange, the best scones I've found so far in West Cork are from Kalbos, in Skibbereen, but there are a lot of other places left to try.
Comments
'Dat wor der Nubbel!'
The facts are clear, UK wide 34% do not own property with a mortgage or outright. That is not good enough.
The average 25-30 year old in the North West, on the average North West 25-30 year old's wages, can not afford to buy a home on their own with a mortgage but without parental or other support on their own wages. They should be able to do so.
Chas and Dave are amusing, but most Londoners are rich and posh. They are paid massive amounts to do posh, do-nothing jobs, but like to lecture others. They live their lives commuting to these do-nothing jobs and are always complaining.
A generalisation, but not that far off.
It is a really weird poll though.
I'd like to go back to Whitechapel and explore it a little - I haven't been there for a decade or so.
Those who own beans already find it easier to get new beans, while campaigning to restrict total bean supply, so making it even tougher for those without a bean of their own to get a bean of their own. So those without beans are forced to pay the bean-owners rent, rent money which the bean-owners can use to purchase new beans - thus fuelling the cycle further.
We've been in a preposterous position for years now whereby its cheaper to pay a mortgage than it is to rent a home, meaning that people who can afford to take out a mortgage can take one out but not pay a penny of their own money toward the mortgage. Instead the mortgage is paid from the rent of those who are renting.
If someone is paying a mortgage that cost should be borne by themselves. If someone is able to afford to pay for a mortgage, then they should be able to pay for it in their own name, not via rent to somebody else's name.
Rent should not cover the interest let alone both the interest and capital repayments on a mortgage. The fact that it does, is because the housing market is completely broken which is self-reinforcing. If interest costs on mortgages became more than you could make from letting the property, we'd suddenly find an exodus of BTL mortgage holders and much more affordable housing even with the same property supply.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/live-olivia-pratt-korbel-murder-26380222
Yesterday a jury of 10 men and two women, plus two men as reserve jurors until the end of the prosecution opening, were sworn in before trial judge Mrs Justice Amanda Yip.
I was always slightly surprised (as someone who grew up first in the Wreake Valley, then in Rutland) that the LibDems didn't have more of a foothold in Rutland - it should be the sort of territory where they have a chance.
I think it is about time the American government designates the Mexican cartels as terror organizations. Start a policy of going after one cartel at a time - whoever has been the most violent over the last few years. You quickly create an interest among druglords that they should carry out their business with as little killing and torture as possible.
A three bed semi towards the edge of the city in the catchment area of one of the best state secondary schools is on the market for £1,150,000.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132193331
It’s like me saying “I don’t really approve of gay sex” or “I don’t really approve of oral sex” - at best it is pompous sententious nonsense and at worst it would display some very peculiar attitudes under the surface
You can get a 3 bed semi in Watford for £430 000
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/england-118727861-17251522?s=f77ed68f56f970b873f5d17633ace9fd84c5b17ccc5d98294ee06ff6e5b0cce5#/
There are 14 people in total. Makes sense, don't want this to have to be tried again because of illness or something.
1. BTL is over for the most part. Landlords are selling up because of increased costs and regulation. Few are going in to it. But it is this phenomenon this that is pushing up rents - supply dries up, demand doesn't, then rents go up, for which landlords get blamed. It is like hatred of the Kulaks.
2. In most parts of the UK private sector housebuilding has a natural limit because it is set by the amount of demand for new build properties which have a premium. You need to increase capacity through things like self build and affordable housing (like modular building) but on a massive, massive scale, along with Council housing, to increase the amount of houses being delivered.
The latter point is why I will vote labour. For as long as they are in power, the Conservatives will not seriously deal with the problem of the need to increase housebuilding. Labour can, because - as I have been explaining for years, they can just pass an act of parliament requiring a million houses to be built across all these constituencies where the political debate is dominated by Tories and the LD's fighting with each other over who will stop housebuilding.
I’ve had sex where I literally could not name the girl the morning after, nor she me. And we never met again, nor wanted to. And it was superb
The zipless fuck as Erica Jong put it (a woman, btw). The holy grail of sex. The sheer animality of it is THE POINT
Of course you run a risk with casual sex. Getting involved despite yourself. Getting STDs. Etc
But any sex comes with a risk. Prolonged marital sex over time often ends up so forlorn and tedious it is like “occasional regrettable episodes of brother sister incest” - as Martin Amis brilliantly phrased it
Though we do need some more new affordable homes in London and the most expensive parts of the Home counties
https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1632876187537092609
US political discourse is nuts.
He often had quite good ideas amidst the narcissistic madness
Any answer will sound mad, at best, because it is mad. Human life is infinitely various, thank god, big no thanks to the lefty Anti Sex league.
Orwell skewered the Puritanism in the left superbly. The Khmer Rouge hated sex as well. Tried to stop it. Literally
https://twitter.com/CJFDillow/status/1632445143553900546
This seems too bizarre to be true, but it is. He was an Air Force radio operator stationed in Germany. He told me and my siblings about it many times over our lives.
https://twitter.com/rosannecash/status/1633096324609392640
What's your position on juggling?
It's like someone saying they disapprove of people not having sex, choosing to live alone. Or someone saying they disapprove of people not having their own children. Even if you think that for 'most people' getting married and having children will deliver happiness and fulfillment in their lives, would you 'disapprove' of people who live differently?
Indeed they would have more in common with each other on that than with rightwing libertarians or leftwing social liberals
But then, Morris Dancing...
But, we all post on a lot of things we know nothing about, which is no doubt annoying to those who know more - see also the 'PB Scotch experts' frustrations. For the most part, this doesn't really bother me and I hope I don't bother others too much with my inane opinions.*
FWIW though, I value @TOPPING and @Dura_Ace contributions on the Ukraine war, pointing out some of the errors in what people are posting and giving a different perspective.
*On being a Scotch expert, I look set to lose some money on the next First Minister - I managed some good trades on Yousaf and Forbes, but have some stranded assets on Regan at what I thought looked an attractive price - luckily no more than a London measure of single malt down, overall, even in worst case.
Invading a neighbour isn't likely to do much for either the quality or length of life of your populace.
It’s at this point I remember you’re the guy who is scared of going abroad because you “don’t like driving on the wrong side of the road” and it all makes total sense
Hard to blind the participants though, unless you get all kinky with blindfolds, I guess...
Cocaine costs £50 a kilo to make as legal product, IIRC.
Undercut the cartels by a margin, the rest is tax.
Use the tax money to buy Jericho 3 nuclear missiles and warheads for Ukraine.
This will piss off
- the drug cartels
- the drug dealers
- the Republicans
- Putin
- The Lib Dem’s
Had this local Hoi An speciality
Cao Lau. Like pho but with less broth and more pork scratchings
https://www.2foodtrippers.com/hoi-an-food-favorites/
I LOVE HOI AN
We talk about other places when people say something about them. So, say something about somewhere else.
Young African American gentlemen from the less wealthy sections of LA or Chicago, for example.
In countries where the state controls cigarette sales, guess what?
Plus Copped Hall, which is being restored and once hosted Elizabeth I
Interesting grammar school article, discussing how non grammar school kids perform worse than in areas without selection, while grammar schools remain the preserve of the middle class.
Grammar schools will take brighter children from outside the local authority in preference to poorer children locally.
What happens is that the pupils from outside the area reduces the number of available spaces.
Then after several days deliberation they concluded it wasn't salvageable. In fact they turned out to be correct. David Cameron with the help of Steve Hilton created a party that was barely recognisable from the one that collapsed in '97.
I often wondered whether without Iraq they might have have had to wait for at least another five years.