This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Judges have to pass sentence in accordance with the relevant sentencing guidelines.
These guidelines are drafted by the Sentencing Council, a body which sits within the Ministry of Justice.
However, Ministers are not members. Various senior judges are and the DPP. They are the ones who write the guidelines.
It was set up in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 the then DPP, Keir Starmer, was a member of this Council and helped draft and approve its sentencing guidelines.
So he knows perfectly well how the system works and that this ad is factually wrong.
All we need now is for some enterprising journalist to find some child sex abuser let off prison under the guidelines in force when Starmer as DPP was on the Sentencing Council. It would, frankly, serve him right.
There is plenty of material to attack the Tories on over criminal justice but this is the wrong ad and reflects very badly on Starmer.
She is correct. He deserves prison for Jan 6th (and probably a lot else) but not for hush money, or for falsifying business records for hush money.
Not entirely sure why the US taxpayer should be chipping in to pay off Trump's peccadillos. Claiming hush money was legal fees and deductible for tax purposes was definitely naughty. No great problem with him paying it in the first place but it was not a business expense.
As for Jan 6th, and his attempts to corrupt the democratic process in Georgia, yes he absolutely should go to jail for that.
AIUI he ended up overpaying tax. Cohen paid it out of his personal bank accounts, so was then paid the amount plus his income taxes which were more than any deductibles for the business.
Not been charged with tax evasion. Whether other parts of his finances may amount to tax evasion, who knows I wouldn't be surprised.
I suspect Casino Royale is right and this won’t trouble labour too much having media luvvies condemning him.
He’s got to be careful though. Those “media luvvies” and metropolitan liberals form a decent chunk of his voting coalition. I agree Starmer needs to be on the competent centre ground of British politics and that includes supporting and being appreciative to law and order concerns.
He doesn’t however need to be on the authoritarian hang ‘em and flog em Michael-Howard-esque side of the debate.
I suspect be more New Labour is their default position, and the ghastly Straw & Blunkett never did much harm to them in their pomp.
I do wonder if this (apparent) 3-D chess adoption of fairly reactionary position for electoral effect doesn’t have long term consequences though, ie they actually start believing this stuff. I also think Labour’s first term will be fairly punishing, the temptation to hang on to tabloid friendly policies will be massive,
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Judges have to pass sentence in accordance with the relevant sentencing guidelines.
These guidelines are drafted by the Sentencing Council, a body which sits within the Ministry of Justice.
However, Ministers are not members. Various senior judges are and the DPP. They are the ones who write the guidelines.
It was set up in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 the then DPP, Keir Starmer, was a member of this Council and helped draft and approve its sentencing guidelines.
So he knows perfectly well how the system works and that this ad is factually wrong.
All we need now is for some enterprising journalist to find some child sex abuser let off prison under the guidelines in force when Starmer as DPP was on the Sentencing Council. It would, frankly, serve him right.
There is plenty of material to attack the Tories on over criminal justice but this is the wrong ad and reflects very badly on Starmer.
As I have just posted and this counter advert affirms your point
I've been to a lot of movies lately. None were even half as packed as when going to the Super Mario Bros movie. No doubt a sign of cultural degradation for some.
People have been whining about the quality of popular movies since before the Hayes Code. Indeed that was part of the reason for it…
I never fail to find a certain joy in reviews of a Michael Bay movies which harp upon plot problems, poor character development etc and complain about his use of large explosions (using various materials to enhance the fireballs).
It argues a kind of optimism - that one day Mr Bay will relent and produce a Ken Loach film. As opposed continuing with the formula that has made him billions.
I blame the people that go see them, for encouraging him...
Saw one once. None since.
Bad Boys is entertaining. And woke in a certain way….
Good Morning, although somewhat belated, from a sunny North Essex. No-one who dislikes airport queues should fly into Bangkok! Queues are massive. Fortunately there is a separate, much shorter one at a special gate for the over 70’s!
Not my recent experience at all. The Thais are super keen to revive their tourist industry so they’ve dispensed with nearly all frontier paperwork and queues now average 5 minutes. They’ve mechanised everything, it’s all cameras and fingerprint scanners. Just the passport stamps left but they’ll be gone soon - replaced by tech
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
Its an article of faith for various guardianistas / debt ridden graduates / struggling southerners that all those 60% Leave areas are economic wastelands.
As others have pointed out the big factor is the level of home ownership.
Be on the right side of that divide and things have probably never been as good.
And there's approximately ten times as many people who own their homes outright than who have used a food bank.
This is the editor of the left-of-centre New Statesman.
"George Eaton @georgeeaton · 10h This is one of the worst political adverts in recent UK history and not the first time Labour has pandered to prejudice in the hope of electoral gain."
Keir will be pleased with that. He's played right into his hands.
We all know SKS doesn't really believe this but getting attacked by luvvies from his own side will help credentialise his cynicism to his target audience.
It's all a game really, isn't it?
Do we know this about SKS?
He nominated Tom Watson, a Labour MP willing to defame and smear innocents as child abusers for political advantage, to the Lords. This ad is just another version of that.
It is utterly shameful by him and the party he leads.
It's a ploy. People will complain, and Labour might even pull it, but they want people to remember the underlying message 'Tories have done a bad job on crime'.
Its like that bloody bus people still complain about, they want the argument focused on thsy area.
There is a non-negligible chance that the argument may focus on Starmer instead...
Judges have to pass sentence in accordance with the relevant sentencing guidelines.
These guidelines are drafted by the Sentencing Council, a body which sits within the Ministry of Justice.
However, Ministers are not members. Various senior judges are and the DPP. They are the ones who write the guidelines.
It was set up in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 the then DPP, Keir Starmer, was a member of this Council and helped draft and approve its sentencing guidelines.
So he knows perfectly well how the system works and that this ad is factually wrong.
All we need now is for some enterprising journalist to find some child sex abuser let off prison under the guidelines in force when Starmer as DPP was on the Sentencing Council. It would, frankly, serve him right.
There is plenty of material to attack the Tories on over criminal justice but this is the wrong ad and reflects very badly on Starmer.
As I have just posted and this counter advert affirms your point
The de-politicising of sentencing was something that the prison reform movement had been arguing for. For a long time.
The language pertaining to the Scottish sentencing concerning sub-25 men being (in effect) only partially competent for their actions is straight out of the literature in the Europe (and developed world) prison reform agenda.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
There's considerable truth in that quote, whether you apply it to transactivism which has been her controversy or to other tendencies. Though I am not sure about the phrase "new elites"; that feels too complimentary.
I've been to a lot of movies lately. None were even half as packed as when going to the Super Mario Bros movie. No doubt a sign of cultural degradation for some.
People have been whining about the quality of popular movies since before the Hayes Code. Indeed that was part of the reason for it…
I never fail to find a certain joy in reviews of a Michael Bay movies which harp upon plot problems, poor character development etc and complain about his use of large explosions (using various materials to enhance the fireballs).
It argues a kind of optimism - that one day Mr Bay will relent and produce a Ken Loach film. As opposed continuing with the formula that has made him billions.
I blame the people that go see them, for encouraging him...
Saw one once. None since.
Bad Boys is entertaining. And woke in a certain way….
Transformers Bumblebee is a rather pleasant film IMV. Utterly ridiculous premise, obviously, but it has a certain charm that the others in the series utterly lacks. Oddly enough, it was the one film in the franchise so far not directed by Bay...
Good Morning, although somewhat belated, from a sunny North Essex. No-one who dislikes airport queues should fly into Bangkok! Queues are massive. Fortunately there is a separate, much shorter one at a special gate for the over 70’s!
Not my recent experience at all. The Thais are super keen to revive their tourist industry so they’ve dispensed with nearly all frontier paperwork and queues now average 5 minutes. They’ve mechanised everything, it’s all cameras and fingerprint scanners. Just the passport stamps left but they’ll be gone soon - replaced by tech
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
That’s good; whether I’ll ever be able to take advantage of it is open to doubt. But if I keep going it might happen. Our son has offered accommodation and to find a caregiver! Probably cheaper than here!
I suspect Casino Royale is right and this won’t trouble labour too much having media luvvies condemning him.
He’s got to be careful though. Those “media luvvies” and metropolitan liberals form a decent chunk of his voting coalition. I agree Starmer needs to be on the competent centre ground of British politics and that includes supporting and being appreciative to law and order concerns.
He doesn’t however need to be on the authoritarian hang ‘em and flog em Michael-Howard-esque side of the debate.
I suspect be more New Labour is their default position, and the ghastly Straw & Blunkett never did much harm to them in their pomp.
I do wonder if this (apparent) 3-D chess adoption of fairly reactionary position for electoral effect doesn’t have long term consequences though, ie they actually start believing this stuff. I also think Labour’s first term will be fairly punishing, the temptation to hang on to tabloid friendly policies will be massive,
The temptation to hang?!?
That misinterpretation is more than a bit ropey.
The long drop in my standards - can they gallow-er?
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
There's considerable truth in that quote, whether you apply it to transactivism which has been her controversy or to other tendencies. Though I am not sure about the phrase "new elites"; that feels too complimentary.
She is correct. He deserves prison for Jan 6th (and probably a lot else) but not for hush money, or for falsifying business records for hush money.
Listening the R4 Briefing Room just now, the potential prison time on this one is to do with campaign finance violations, which are technically heavily regulated in the USA.
The list of lawsuits is dizzying. Quite enjoyed that the New York Attorney General who started it is Cyrus Vance Junior, the son of President Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State.
The suggestion is that the difficult one to resist is going to be withholding the Presidential documents at Mar-a-Lago, and resisting all the attempts by the State Department (??) to recover them; a simple charge and a lot of evidence.
Here in Sunderland to see family been out and about shopping. Not the slightest sign of any cost of living crisis here. Shops rammed, prices keen and trolleys heaving. Especially in the likes of M & S food! Presumably all these good folk of the barren north east pop in to the food banks on the way home not the multitude of very busy café s and tea shops like us!
False conscience is a big thing on the left. The masses get accused of not understanding the reality of their situation. It’s interesting to see it beginning to permeate thinking on the right.
I tell no fibs. I was genuinely shocked at the difference between what I see on the news and what I saw in shops which I presumed would be beyond the reach of most. To be fair I also reckon that those M and S food deals were sensational value and would compete well with my local Mercadona for value. I fully accept the issues with fuel prices as I've experienced much the same in Spain.
Its an article of faith for various guardianistas / debt ridden graduates / struggling southerners that all those 60% Leave areas are economic wastelands.
As others have pointed out the big factor is the level of home ownership.
Be on the right side of that divide and things have probably never been as good.
And there's approximately ten times as many people who own their homes outright than who have used a food bank.
My relatives, from New York, always remark on the lack of stabbings, the cleanliness of the underground, etc etc
Good Morning, although somewhat belated, from a sunny North Essex. No-one who dislikes airport queues should fly into Bangkok! Queues are massive. Fortunately there is a separate, much shorter one at a special gate for the over 70’s!
Not my recent experience at all. The Thais are super keen to revive their tourist industry so they’ve dispensed with nearly all frontier paperwork and queues now average 5 minutes. They’ve mechanised everything, it’s all cameras and fingerprint scanners. Just the passport stamps left but they’ll be gone soon - replaced by tech
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
There is fortunately something else that will be finished after one or two more summers.....
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
There's considerable truth in that quote, whether you apply it to transactivism which has been her controversy or to other tendencies. Though I am not sure about the phrase "new elites"; that feels too complimentary.
Elites suggests a high level of ability.
There's little elite among many 'elites'.
Overclass would be a better description.
New Upper 10,000
The defining characteristic - in the event of an utterly egregious fuck up, they get a better job. And a golden handshake. And a golden hello. And a spot on a TV program where they make out they they are the victim.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Good Morning, although somewhat belated, from a sunny North Essex. No-one who dislikes airport queues should fly into Bangkok! Queues are massive. Fortunately there is a separate, much shorter one at a special gate for the over 70’s!
Not my recent experience at all. The Thais are super keen to revive their tourist industry so they’ve dispensed with nearly all frontier paperwork and queues now average 5 minutes. They’ve mechanised everything, it’s all cameras and fingerprint scanners. Just the passport stamps left but they’ll be gone soon - replaced by tech
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
There is fortunately something else that will be finished after one or two more summers.....
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Ho, ho, ho.
They should tell us which other clients they have canned, so we can short them....
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
If that is representative (from ex no 10 head of polling...) and they are still undecided how bad must the Tories be?
The sample were 50:50 Labour and Conservative 2019 voters who now say they are undecided. That’s not representative of the electorate because there are far more Con->undecided voters than Lab->undecided voters, and of course there are plenty of Con->Lab voters.
One would expect many of the people who voted Labour in 2019 and are now undecided to be down on Starmer, by definition.
So I think this helps tell us what people who don’t like Starmer think of him, but it doesn’t contradict the polling showing Labour massively ahead.
This stuff would be bizarre if it were not so outrageous. I'm no fan of disruptive protests within a legislature, usually done for personal PR, but even if that deserved sanction expulsion would be wildly disproportionate, and the reason why the white representative was not expelled as well is seriously weak. I'm to believe that the House voted 75-25 and 69-26 to expel the other two, but that purely on the grounds she did not use a megaphone those supporting expulson were 'No, that's just unfair'?
Fascinating that some of the Republicans in the House compared the actions of those expelled to insurrection and the 6th January riots, even as they and their colleagues nationally begin to praise those who took part in the riots and support the one who instigated it by trying to overturn an election.
I guess insurrection is one of those issues that is only sometimes a problem.
The other depressing part is the strength of partisanship - usually if you have a group of 75 you'd assume at least a few would be out of step on an issue like this, a handful of dissenters doing a "They were wrong to disrupt, but this is not the way". But no. 75 GOP, 75 votes in favour for the first.
The reality is that expulsion, as opposed to suspension for breach of House rules, was, up until now, extremely rare.
Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, one of the Dems that the GOP is trying to expel from state legislature to protesting gun violence, calls out his colleagues on the floor
The even more depressing thing is the thought that Trump is looking at this sort of thing and getting ideas. After all, he wanted states last time to send different slates of electors following the presidential election, or just ignore the democratic vote in their state and send their own choices, and I don't think anyone went for that. But perhaps looking at this he is thinking how to persuade the Georgia House or whatever to expel dissenting voices as part of making such a job easier.
Conspiracy theory esque? Sure. But we know he and his backers explored these types of options before.
In either North or South Carolina (I forget which) a coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans which had won State elections, in the 1890’s, drawing support from both black and white voters, was violently driven from office by hardline Democrats, who then disenfranchised most blacks. The MAGA’s see that as a blueprint.
You'd have thought that hardline Democrats and Nationalist Boers would get on like a house on fire.
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
If that is representative (from ex no 10 head of polling...) and they are still undecided how bad must the Tories be?
The sample were 50:50 Labour and Conservative 2019 voters who now say they are undecided. That’s not representative of the electorate because there are far more Con->undecided voters than Lab->undecided voters, and of course there are plenty of Con->Lab voters.
One would expect many of the people who voted Labour in 2019 and are now undecided to be down on Starmer, by definition.
So I think this helps tell us what people who don’t like Starmer think of him, but it doesn’t contradict the polling showing Labour massively ahead.
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
But Labour are twenty points ahead *without* these voters.
Imagine putting voters in a line from loyalest Conservative to loyalest Labourite. At the moment, the undecideds are quite a way to the right, certainly compared with where the undecideds were in 2019 or 2021.
And of course they are coming up with negatives about politicians. If they didn't they wouldn't be undecided.
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
But what about the Ecuadorian Rumour?
You never Quito, do you?
You just love Peru-zing his answers though
Not if he is getting a Chile response.
Are you going to make us Endure(as) even more of these?
She is correct. He deserves prison for Jan 6th (and probably a lot else) but not for hush money, or for falsifying business records for hush money.
Listening the R4 Briefing Room just now, the potential prison time on this one is to do with campaign finance violations, which are technically heavily regulated in the USA.
The list of lawsuits is dizzying. Quite enjoyed that the New York Attorney General who started it is Cyrus Vance Junior, the son of President Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State...
Carter, of course, avoided any such shenanigans with family businesses, handing the peanut farm to trustees to sell, on the way to his presidency.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
They've only done this because they realise it looks bad to remain in post. They could've issued a qualified report (question, was it qualified in 2021 year end I wonder?) if they thought there was some inpropiety going on.
Indeed, the whole point of an audit is to issue a report, good or bad. If you will never issue a bad one, because of the publicity, then what's the point of an audit report anyway?
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
Good Morning, although somewhat belated, from a sunny North Essex. No-one who dislikes airport queues should fly into Bangkok! Queues are massive. Fortunately there is a separate, much shorter one at a special gate for the over 70’s!
Not my recent experience at all. The Thais are super keen to revive their tourist industry so they’ve dispensed with nearly all frontier paperwork and queues now average 5 minutes. They’ve mechanised everything, it’s all cameras and fingerprint scanners. Just the passport stamps left but they’ll be gone soon - replaced by tech
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
There is fortunately something else that will be finished after one or two more summers.....
I suspect Casino Royale is right and this won’t trouble labour too much having media luvvies condemning him.
I'm sure it will trouble them. It removes one of their most invaluable USP's. My guess and hope is this was a piece of artwork that got through because no one significant was watching. I wouldn't be surprised if he apologises
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
Sounds like Sir Stuart Rose, bemoaning the increase in wages for unskilled labour if the UK leaves the EU.
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
But what about the Ecuadorian Rumour?
You never Quito, do you?
You just love Peru-zing his answers though
Not if he is getting a Chile response.
Are you going to make us Endure(as) even more of these?
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
But what about the Ecuadorian Rumour?
You never Quito, do you?
You just love Peru-zing his answers though
Not if he is getting a Chile response.
Are you going to make us Endure(as) even more of these?
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Will enjoy Starmer staring at his shoes when asked "Given the polls all say you will be well short of a majority, who will you govern with?"
Well it won't be the SNP with them imploding. Current Scotland polls suggest Labour would win 15+ seats there. You think Humsa Useless is going to turn it around? Which means if Labour are short their most likely partners are the Lib Dems. And whatever people think of them, nobody thinks they aren't reliable coalition partners or are terrified of Ed Davey.
Dissident republicans are plotting terror attacks against police officers ahead of Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak’s arrival in Northern Ireland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, police have warned.
In a public briefing on Thursday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it had “very strong” intelligence that officers would be targeted in Londonderry on Easter Monday.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
Whatever you think about Blair, he was able to embody a sense of renewal in a way that Starmer cannot.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
The Tories have two potentially winning strategies:
- Make it a presidential contest between Sunak and Starmer - Make it a referendum on the Labour party
Strategy 1) Sunak will need to improve. His approval ratings and 'who would make best PM' ratings are worse on average than Starmer's. Strategy 2) Pretty hard when Labour aren't seen as particularly threatening and with Corbyn given the boot. The SNP scaremongering won't be effective given they are imploding and nobody thinks Humsa Useless would boss Starmer around in a hung parliament.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Client selection questions:
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
How did they miss that CEO salary was missing for 8 years
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Client selection questions:
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
How did they miss that CEO salary was missing for 8 years
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Client selection questions:
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
2. Has your Treasurer or former Treasurer ever resigned because he could not gain access to the books?
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
Sounds like Sir Stuart Rose, bemoaning the increase in wages for unskilled labour if the UK leaves the EU.
Rose was wrong of course, as Britain has left the EU and wages have not kept pace with inflation.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
I’m not an especial Keir fan, and I accept that he is “no Blair”, but the PB Tories have clearly forgotten that there remained considerable skepticism about Blair throughout.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
Sounds like Sir Stuart Rose, bemoaning the increase in wages for unskilled labour if the UK leaves the EU.
Rose was wrong of course, as Britain has left the EU and wages have not kept pace with inflation.
Or he was technically right (wages have risen) but irrelevant (if prices rise faster, that leaves people worse off).
I suspect Casino Royale is right and this won’t trouble labour too much having media luvvies condemning him.
I'm sure it will trouble them. It removes one of their most invaluable USP's. My guess and hope is this was a piece of artwork that got through because no one significant was watching. I wouldn't be surprised if he apologises
I believe SKS’s Director of Communications retweeted it, so unlikely to have slipped through
Clearly the SNP have got a lot on their plate right now and there are plenty on here and elsewhere disinclined to help them or give the benefit of the doubt. However I can't be the only one who saw the 'dramatic arrest of public figure, later released without charge' and was a little nervous. Damien Green, Cliff Richard. I'm sure there is an element of the police that doesn't mind making politicians feel nervous.
So let us wait and see.
[edit] There is indeed the defamation issue. And even if charges were to be brought against anyone, Scottish judges really, really do not like contempt of court - and even Scottish courts have powers over the whole of the UK for such offences, as I understand it.
I see that the 'digging up the garden' was a lot of nonsense, apparently, by the way - presumably because some press hack saw a cop moving a shovel out of the garden shed or something.
But what about the Ecuadorian Rumour?
You never Quito, do you?
You just love Peru-zing his answers though
Not if he is getting a Chile response.
Are you going to make us Endure(as) even more of these?
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
Sounds like Sir Stuart Rose, bemoaning the increase in wages for unskilled labour if the UK leaves the EU.
Rose was wrong of course, as Britain has left the EU and wages have not kept pace with inflation.
At the bottom they have. Lots of hospitality industry now offering £12-13, whereas they were all very much min wage four years ago. A lot of people changed jobs during the pandemic too, moving out of MW into better paid employment.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Client selection questions:
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
2. Has your Treasurer or former Treasurer ever resigned because he could not gain access to the books?
The Times reported the other day that the police are focussing on car purchases in this investigation.
If it’s anything less than a Merc I’m going to be disappointed.
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Peter Hitchens is right IMO when he says most people at the top of the Conservative Party don't really have any strong opinions on anything, apart from staying in office. They look down on Conservative activists who do actually believe in things.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
I’ve got a piece on this theme for the weekend.
Contains an awesome pun.
One of PB’s best ever.
You do know the one about underpromising and overdelivering ?
I’ve decided to ditch my modest self effacing approach to life and become brash and self confident.
If you are as working class as you are modest, does that mean you're now going to become middle class?
I recently did a survey at work and it said I was upper middle class.
I was shocked.
You obviously kept your ‘vivid’ trainer collection under wraps. In my admittedly limited experience, the upper middle class tend to wear their granda’s Dunlop Green Flashes and call them pumps.
But Labour are twenty points ahead *without* these voters.
The question is: how real and robust is that lead?
I suspect it's at least 15 points. Opinium's polling assumes that 2019 Con voters who are now undecided will head to back to the Tories, and that's what they have Labour's lead at. But to be honest I think there's a fair chance that many of those voters ultimately just won't show up on polling day. Most of them voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in 2019... and things haven't got any better for them. I agree they probably won't vote for Labour, but it's going to be difficult to get them to turn out for the Tories in 18 months.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
The Tories have two potentially winning strategies:
- Make it a presidential contest between Sunak and Starmer - Make it a referendum on the Labour party
Strategy 1) Sunak will need to improve. His approval ratings and 'who would make best PM' ratings are worse on average than Starmer's. Strategy 2) Pretty hard when Labour aren't seen as particularly threatening and with Corbyn given the boot. The SNP scaremongering won't be effective given they are imploding and nobody thinks Humsa Useless would boss Starmer around in a hung parliament.
I think Tories have the May problem with strategy one. Sunak just isn't a natural stump campaigner like Johnson was - see the Tory leadership contest over the summer when, frankly, he made several missteps and was out-performed by Truss in debate by some margin. His speeches are extremely stilted, and he's introverted. None of that makes him a bad person, and Starmer is no great shakes either, but they need to be careful about their campaign writing cheques that his personality can't cash. The May thing, with the horrible juxtaposition between "strong and stable" and her going to ground at the first sign of trouble, was instructive in this regard.
On strategy two, there is probably some mileage in lack of experience, recent experience of Corbynism, and risk of coalition with the SNP (who are less "scary" to the English voter without Sturgeon but are chaotic).
I don't really think there's enough there, but I'd do something around that if I was running the Tory campaign.
Buckingham Palace has said that it is co-operating with an independent study exploring the relationship between the British monarchy and the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Palace said King Charles takes the issue "profoundly seriously".
The wokeness of Charles and William is great for the monarchy.
Staunch supporters of the monarchy love wokeism.
I think Charles will make an excellent job of this, probably far better than EII would have.
But apparently it's impossible to make an excellent job of this slavery business according to many on PB.
Bit simplistic. There are lots of issues around the idea of reparations for slavery. Who, how much are just the start. Then there is why is the caribbean slave trade different from other slavery? How far back does one go? Do we go after tribal leaders in Africa who sold slaves to the Europeans?
Its not a simple question.
No issues at all with increasing education about the issues. That could have been done with Colston in Bristol. History is complex. People bought and sold slaves. It was legal at the time. We do not regard that as fitting our moral compass now. In 100 years we may regard eating meat as abhorrent (some already do). Will we tear down statues of people who ate meat?*
*Probably.
Don't forget that KC3 isn't just our King, but also the HoS of a number of Carribean countries. I wouldn't take the whataboutary of slaves in Ancient Rome to those Islands and expect a sympathetic ear. Neither would I take it to the former slave exporting Commonwealth countries of Africa.
This penitance isn't just for a domestic audience.
We've been assured many times that all the Caribbean countries will be going republican. Most have had plans for such for a long time.
Not saying the penitance might not still be for more than a domestic audience, but I imagine King Sausage Fingers is pretty realistic about how long he will be head of state in any part of the Caribbean.
There’s an obvious conflict of interest in being Head of State of different countries whose interests clash.
This is KCIII being a cuck.
I thought he'd said he understood he wouldn't take any political positions when he took the throne, and he's just taken one.
The Queen wouldn't have made the same mistake.
Everything is political on some level. Knighting Captain Tom could've be interpreted as a rebuke to libertarian detractors of the NHS.
There shouldn't be anything particularly controversial about saying that the British Crown profited from the slave trade. It's a well documented matter of history that it all started even before the Union of the Crowns.
Which is fair, but what happens next? Cries for compensation? Already happening. Education about history is great, I’m less convinced we should be righting the wrongs from 300 years ago by paying money today.
Putting it crudely, I think it depends how much those demanding reparations are after, and from whom. There's a case for requesting that the wealthy descendants of those who profited from slave trading might wish to part with some of the resultant loot. Massive sums extracted directly from the general taxpayer are a different matter. I've written about this before: telling a single mum who's trying to raise a couple of kiddies on a minimum wage crap job and derisory social security that some of her taxes now have to go to pay off angry people in the West Indies - because their ancestors were slaves two centuries ago, and the suffering of the slaves is the reason why she is "rich" - isn't particularly equitable and won't go down too well.
Especially when said single mother’s ancestors were probably coughing their lungs out in a damp hovel, two hundred years ago.
There are many things I wish had not happened in the past, chattel slavery very much being one of them.
But “the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
This all builds up to a pattern of Charles having little confidence in himself or as his role as a monarch, which makes him a feast for anyone who wants to have a bite.
It won't help his confidence, their respect, or this country, and they will always come back asking for more.
I disagree there. I think Charles' willingness to open the question, and refusal to supply easy, simple answers, is a sign of strength.
The press may not like it, but then it's not for them.
Charles is actually a bit of a problem for the Republican movement. Quite a reasonable chap on stuff like this, then you have all the green stuff.
He's a benefit for the Republican movement if he picks side because he will undermine his base of natural supporters.
He simply doesn't have the "recollections may vary" skill of HMQEII, which we are seeing now.
Well, that is the lottery of Monarchy, you have to take what you get. Elizabeth or Margaret? Edward VIII or George VI? Charles, or Andrew, or Anne? William or Harry? It is luck of the draw, and sooner or later draw a dud, though opinions will vary on who is the dud.
In my mind reparations are best in the form of apology for wrongs committed, even if these were by the standards of the times, and restitution of traceable artefacts such as the Benin bronzes etc. Something to be said for easier visas for young Commonwealth citizens to study and work here too.
You however want reparations paid by people that were little more than slaves themselves....you cite mill workers and cotton...yes they could not take that job but also likely if they didn't they wouldn't have an income and starve.
When the choice is do this or starve is it so much difference between that and slavery?
Those mill workers you cite are all long dead surely? They're not going to pay the reparations.
Here's a suggestion: introduce a wealth tax and use that in part to pay some reparations.
I don't believe I have any moral obligation to pay a penny to the descendants of slaves.
Nor do I.
But I do believe Britain as a nation has some moral obligations.
If countries have national moral obligations do they also have national characters? As that idea has been poo poohed previously.
In a cold way there are no obligations on any country, but in a practical sense as well as any moral I think it is only right for countries to try to right by one another wherever possible, just as they should try to do right within their borders. But I just find the supposed simplicity of reparations to be a bit suspect given for most people we are not in a position to precisely calculate some level of harm their antecendents have suffered, before you even get onto moralities or practicalities of how and who to pay etc. Address the ongoing impacts of historic wrongs? Absolutely. But is that really the way to address those impacts? I'm not persuaded.
I think the core of the argument for a reparations approach is that if you look at the last half millennium or so of world history then slavery and colonialism are (arguably) the essential fulcrum that turned history so that we now have such a clear and large divide between a wealthy "developed" world and a poor "impoverished" world. It provided the essential surplus capital to pay for the industrial revolution.
Pretty clearly the "development" or "aid" approach of the last half century or so hasn't done much to erase this historical divide. So perhaps it's time for a change and an attempt at a new, perhaps more simplistic approach, of providing reparations without worrying too much about calculating it all exactly. Great harm was done to a great many people and it affects a great many people to this day, and fairly obviously we haven't done enough to redress the harm caused.
That's the core of the argument but it's complete bollocks.
The industrial revolution would have happened, and the development of new technology to exploit new domestic energy sources here, leading to huge economic development, with or without slavery also being in place elsewhere in the world at the time. It was and is entirely agnostic to it, particularly since the whole point of it is that you can do more with less labour, and so the business case writes itself. It hinges on political and legal stability and having a sophisticated financing system. Not whether you have free or enslaved labour, the latter being more unproductive anyway...
That's half true. In reality early industrialisation - notably the invention of the cotton gin - drove a large increase in plantation slavery, and the brutality of the system. As you note, industrialised outputs rose massively - while it was not possible to mechanise cotton production.
It's not something I've ever looked into before, but why was cotton production so hard to mechanise, and therefore required large amounts of people to grow?
From that, it sounds like there were many tasks that needed doing: from weeding, and thinning, preparing the soil and spraying. Whilst some machines were developed, as long as they needed people around to pick the cotton, mechanisation of the earlier tasks was also less economic.
I do wonder if the lack of mechanisation was not down to technology, but to the fact the owners realised the effects mechanisation would have, as stated above? And if it works, why fix it?
No, it was far more likely down to the lack of the internal combustion engine a hundred years earlier.
As the story you link indicates, the development of a practical machine for picking cotton was a long drawn out process even in the twentieth century.
There was no IC engine for many jobs during the early industrial revolution - yet people still managed to do stuff. Steam engines were introduced onto farms before 1800, and portable ones that could be moved at around the time the practical locomotive was created.
I know the deep south was much less industrially-developed compared to the northern states, but if there had been a will, there would have been a way to at least do some changes - and the fact it was only done in the 1930s probably wasn't down to some magical new enabler being required.
My *guess* - and it is no more than that for a short amount of reading - is the following. Such technological developments to improve productivity require massive amounts of capital. In many industries, the owners saw the advantages and strove for new technology - and those that did not, often succumbed to competitive pressures.
But in the south, increased productivity would throw loads of slaves out of work, which would lead to social changes. The owners in other industries and countries did not care much about the social changes (hence luddites); but in the south the system was based around slavery. What would happen if the slaves had no work? There was therefore a massive disincentive to improving productivity via machines.
P'haps.
Unemployed slaves would just have been left to starve.
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
There was also the fact that cheap manual labour represented a barrier to investment in mechanisation.
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
Sounds like Sir Stuart Rose, bemoaning the increase in wages for unskilled labour if the UK leaves the EU.
Rose was wrong of course, as Britain has left the EU and wages have not kept pace with inflation.
At the bottom they have. Lots of hospitality industry now offering £12-13, whereas they were all very much min wage four years ago. A lot of people changed jobs during the pandemic too, moving out of MW into better paid employment.
Covid saw significant numbers simply leave the labour force altogether.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
I’ve got a piece on this theme for the weekend.
Contains an awesome pun.
One of PB’s best ever.
You do know the one about underpromising and overdelivering ?
I’ve decided to ditch my modest self effacing approach to life and become brash and self confident.
If you are as working class as you are modest, does that mean you're now going to become middle class?
I recently did a survey at work and it said I was upper middle class.
I was shocked.
No no, a Cambridge-educated banker’s lawyer son of a doctor, is a modest working-class yeoman.
Says so much about the class system that grandson of humble immigrants can enter the upper middle class within two generations*.
A tribute to the inclusivity of this country.
*Proper generation, not a Scottish one.
But the UK is a racist, oppressive, and nepotistic country, according to many on the left. Might they be wrong?
Genuinely, it’s been brilliant to see in recent years people of all genders, colours, and creeds, in senior positions in government. The UK is one of the best places in the world for this, despite what detractors might say.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
They've only done this because they realise it looks bad to remain in post. They could've issued a qualified report (question, was it qualified in 2021 year end I wonder?) if they thought there was some inpropiety going on.
Indeed, the whole point of an audit is to issue a report, good or bad. If you will never issue a bad one, because of the publicity, then what's the point of an audit report anyway?
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
FWIW, I don’t believe the Tories will win the next election. Too much has passed under the bridge, the Truss debacle being the main one, to give them any real way back.
But I don’t think we’re in 1997 territory.
I think Starmer will pretty much win by default (and I hope he does), absent a cataclysmic event, but he is yet to face proper scrutiny of the lead up to a GE campaign and the campaign itself. Under the white hot scrutiny that will come, I think his lack of charisma and lack of a “big idea” is going to cause him issues. Blair had policies in spades that people saw and liked. Starmer has some tweaks to the tax system and a vague pledge to improve public services. They don’t compare.
But Labour are twenty points ahead *without* these voters.
The question is: how real and robust is that lead?
I suspect it's at least 15 points. Opinium's polling assumes that 2019 Con voters who are now undecided will head to back to the Tories, and that's what they have Labour's lead at. But to be honest I think there's a fair chance that many of those voters ultimately just won't show up on polling day. Most of them voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in 2019... and things haven't got any better for them. I agree they probably won't vote for Labour, but it's going to be difficult to get them to turn out for the Tories in 18 months.
Successful morning canvassing for the Liberals in South Leicestershire village. Lots of "I used to vote Conservative but....." met a nice old dear who said that even she might be voting Lib Dem in Wiltshire despite having got a CBE for her work with the Tories!
Still, many of our institutions were captured by a small number of radicals nonetheless. And this happened partly because the elites running the institutions didn’t have a clue how to stand up to the incoming wave of moral cant, guilt-tripping, and bullying from younger and differently socialised generations. On what firm ground might they have stood in order to see this off? They don’t have a political vocabulary with which to counter the wild rhetoric, and nor do they have the convictions or earnestness to make it stick. What they do have is a suppressed sense of guilt for being so rich, a vague fear that they might make the wrong joke, and a fervent hope that the moralising will stop soon so they can talk about the football or cricket instead. Many of them also have children who lecture them about social justice. They can’t stand up to them either.
Peter Hitchens is right IMO when he says most people at the top of the Conservative Party don't really have any strong opinions on anything, apart from staying in office. They look down on Conservative activists who do actually believe in things.
But let them loose and it leads to Liz Truss. So there's a very stark choice here.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
I’m not an especial Keir fan, and I accept that he is “no Blair”, but the PB Tories have clearly forgotten that there remained considerable skepticism about Blair throughout.
Worth a reminder that a Labour leader doesn’t have to be Blair to be the next PM. Nor do Labour need to win by a record landslide in order to have a comfortable majority.
“He’s not Blair” and “needs to seal the deal” would be like saying every Tory leader since Thatcher “is not Thatcher” and implying they need to be as transformational as her in order to win an election. What we’ve actually seen is a succession of PMs who are mediocre at best, woeful at worst.
But there is a kind of conservatonormism afoot in British politics and has been for decades. The bar is set lower for Tory administrations because they’re seen as the norm. Labour governments are the exception. So they are required to be better.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Client selection questions:
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
2. Has your Treasurer or former Treasurer ever resigned because he could not gain access to the books?
The Times reported the other day that the police are focussing on car purchases in this investigation.
If it’s anything less than a Merc I’m going to be disappointed.
Imagine getting arrested over a Nissan.
R34 GTR M-Spec Nur in Millenium Jade recently went for over a half a million dollars.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
FWIW, I don’t believe the Tories will win the next election. Too much has passed under the bridge, the Truss debacle being the main one, to give them any real way back.
But I don’t think we’re in 1997 territory.
I think Starmer will pretty much win by default (and I hope he does), absent a cataclysmic event, but he is yet to face proper scrutiny of the lead up to a GE campaign and the campaign itself. Under the white hot scrutiny that will come, I think his lack of charisma and lack of a “big idea” is going to cause him issues. Blair had policies in spades that people saw and liked. Starmer has some tweaks to the tax system and a vague pledge to improve public services. They don’t compare.
Did Blair really have "policies in spades that people saw and liked"? He was elected on a promise of sticking to Tory spending plans, and the famous pledge card was extremely modest in its ambition. Indeed, lack of ambition and detail was a common criticism of the time.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Whilst I don't doubt there will be some swingback before the GE, I can't see Labour not getting a stonking majority.
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
It's at times like this that I wish we had PB archives going back to the mid 90s.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
I’m not an especial Keir fan, and I accept that he is “no Blair”, but the PB Tories have clearly forgotten that there remained considerable skepticism about Blair throughout.
Worth a reminder that a Labour leader doesn’t have to be Blair to be the next PM. Nor do Labour need to win by a record landslide in order to have a comfortable majority.
“He’s not Blair” and “needs to seal the deal” would be like saying every Tory leader since Thatcher “is not Thatcher” and implying they need to be as transformational as her in order to win an election. What we’ve actually seen is a succession of PMs who are mediocre at best, woeful at worst.
But there is a kind of conservatonormism afoot in British politics and has been for decades. The bar is set lower for Tory administrations because they’re seen as the norm. Labour governments are the exception. So they are required to be better.
They don’t need to be Blair, but they do need to achieve a swing to overturn a majority of 70 odd and replace it with one of their own.
That is a tall ask and it requires some big shifts. The polls suggest the kind of shift that will do it and then some, but historically it’s very challenging.
Comments
These guidelines are drafted by the Sentencing Council, a body which sits within the Ministry of Justice.
However, Ministers are not members. Various senior judges are and the DPP. They are the ones who write the guidelines.
It was set up in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 the then DPP, Keir Starmer, was a member of this Council and helped draft and approve its sentencing guidelines.
So he knows perfectly well how the system works and that this ad is factually wrong.
All we need now is for some enterprising journalist to find some child sex abuser let off prison under the guidelines in force when Starmer as DPP was on the Sentencing Council. It would, frankly, serve him right.
There is plenty of material to attack the Tories on over criminal justice but this is the wrong ad and reflects very badly on Starmer.
Not been charged with tax evasion. Whether other parts of his finances may amount to tax evasion, who knows I wouldn't be surprised.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1644284967231320065?t=UTYGDgCt6MFf6AKZDyU7SA&s=19
European countries will catch up. Especially those that want a lively tourist industry. I predict these queuing stories will last one or two more summers then be history. Killed off by technology, greed and competition for tourism
As others have pointed out the big factor is the level of home ownership.
Be on the right side of that divide and things have probably never been as good.
And there's approximately ten times as many people who own their homes outright than who have used a food bank.
The language pertaining to the Scottish sentencing concerning sub-25 men being (in effect) only partially competent for their actions is straight out of the literature in the Europe (and developed world) prison reform agenda.
There's little elite among many 'elites'.
Overclass would be a better description.
Very good, btw.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001kpw7
The list of lawsuits is dizzying. Quite enjoyed that the New York Attorney General who started it is Cyrus Vance Junior, the son of President Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State.
The suggestion is that the difficult one to resist is going to be withholding the Presidential documents at Mar-a-Lago, and resisting all the attempts by the State Department (??) to recover them; a simple charge and a lot of evidence.
They get their news from the New York Times…
Lessons have been learned.
The defining characteristic - in the event of an utterly egregious fuck up, they get a better job. And a golden handshake. And a golden hello. And a spot on a TV program where they make out they they are the victim.
"The firm that audits the SNP's finances has resigned, the BBC has learned.
Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for more than a decade, said the decision was taken after a review of its client portfolio."
Has the CEO or former CEO ever been arrested?
Details:
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1643974292500099072
I don’t think the Planters or their poorer supporters, were primarily concerned about
economics.
They actually wanted to retain slavery. Lincoln was still offering to buy them out, until very late in the war.
Jefferson would probably have accepted the deal that the British government offered slave owners in 1833. He knew perfectly well slavery was wrong, (his writings make that plain) but slavery gave him a very high standard of living, as well as the hot young body of Sally Hemming.
But, opinion had moved on by 1860.
One would expect many of the people who voted Labour in 2019 and are now undecided to be down on Starmer, by definition.
So I think this helps tell us what people who don’t like Starmer think of him, but it doesn’t contradict the polling showing Labour massively ahead.
2024 is going to be tighter than the polls suggest.
Contains an awesome pun.
One of PB’s best ever.
The curry is over there. Grab yourself a beer.
And of course they are coming up with negatives about politicians. If they didn't they wouldn't be undecided.
I suspect I am going to enjoy the 2024 exit poll more than you will...
A frequent comment from Northerners visiting the South was how “unimproved” it was. The Slavocracy was, also, actively against investment and change. Except investment in slaves, of course.
They could've issued a qualified report (question, was it qualified in 2021 year end I wonder?) if they thought there was some inpropiety going on.
Indeed, the whole point of an audit is to issue a report, good or bad. If you will never issue a bad one, because of the publicity, then what's the point of an audit report anyway?
However: the tweet above shows an issue that has been mentioned on here before: Labour's lead is not down to any brilliance on Labour's or Starmer's part: it's down to an implosion by the Conservatives.
Between 1992 and 1997, Major's Conservative party suffered a similar (worse?) implosion. And Blair was there not just to capitalise on it; but to give a positive vision with a smiley face. Blair was likeable. Blair was unthreatening.
Starmer is not Blair; and whilst that *might* be morally good, Blair was an electoral asset. Starmer needs to be more like Blair to seal the deal.
- Make it a presidential contest between Sunak and Starmer
- Make it a referendum on the Labour party
Which means if Labour are short their most likely partners are the Lib Dems. And whatever people think of them, nobody thinks they aren't reliable coalition partners or are terrified of Ed Davey.
I was shocked.
But how do we spot the difference ?
Dissident republicans are plotting terror attacks against police officers ahead of Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak’s arrival in Northern Ireland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, police have warned.
In a public briefing on Thursday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it had “very strong” intelligence that officers would be targeted in Londonderry on Easter Monday.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/06/ira-terror-attack-feared-joe-biden-northern-ireland-visit/
Strategy 2) Pretty hard when Labour aren't seen as particularly threatening and with Corbyn given the boot. The SNP scaremongering won't be effective given they are imploding and nobody thinks Humsa Useless would boss Starmer around in a hung parliament.
My memory of the time is that a lot of the current tropes are echoes of what was said then- Blair's just an Islington Lawyer, Prescott is a dangerous fool, the mask will slip, economic growth will see the Conservatives home.
And whilst some of Labour's poll leads were more spectacular then, that was mostly with pollsters that hadn't taken the "shy Tory" lesson of 1992 to heart. ICM/Guardian (gold standard of the time) were always less emphatic. Across 1995, their ratings were in the range Cons 24-32, Lab 53-47. That's more like the current polling range than unlike it.
Swingback is a real thing, sure. But so is "we just want you to go away, even if we're not sure about the other lot". And whilst anything can happen in the future, it's going to require something, probably something big, to shift the parties off the path they are currently on. What?
A tribute to the inclusivity of this country.
*Proper generation, not a Scottish one.
If it’s anything less than a Merc I’m going to be disappointed.
Imagine getting arrested over a Nissan.
But to be honest I think there's a fair chance that many of those voters ultimately just won't show up on polling day. Most of them voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in 2019... and things haven't got any better for them. I agree they probably won't vote for Labour, but it's going to be difficult to get them to turn out for the Tories in 18 months.
On strategy two, there is probably some mileage in lack of experience, recent experience of Corbynism, and risk of coalition with the SNP (who are less "scary" to the English voter without Sturgeon but are chaotic).
I don't really think there's enough there, but I'd do something around that if I was running the Tory campaign.
Genuinely, it’s been brilliant to see in recent years people of all genders, colours, and creeds, in senior positions in government. The UK is one of the best places in the world for this, despite what detractors might say.
But I don’t think we’re in 1997 territory.
I think Starmer will pretty much win by default (and I hope he does), absent a cataclysmic event, but he is yet to face proper scrutiny of the lead up to a GE campaign and the campaign itself. Under the white hot scrutiny that will come, I think his lack of charisma and lack of a “big idea” is going to cause him issues. Blair had policies in spades that people saw and liked. Starmer has some tweaks to the tax system and a vague pledge to improve public services. They don’t compare.
“He’s not Blair” and “needs to seal the deal” would be like saying every Tory leader since Thatcher “is not Thatcher” and implying they need to be as transformational as her in order to win an election. What we’ve actually seen is a succession of PMs who are mediocre at best, woeful at worst.
But there is a kind of conservatonormism afoot in British politics and has been for decades. The bar is set lower for Tory administrations because they’re seen as the norm. Labour governments are the exception. So they are required to be better.
That is a tall ask and it requires some big shifts. The polls suggest the kind of shift that will do it and then some, but historically it’s very challenging.