It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
Cameron gambled the UK's place in the EU - something which he wanted to secure - on a tactical move to neutralize a small right-wing party, and lost. He immolated his own leadership, together with four decades of British foreign and trade policy, and then ran away, leaving his Home Secretary to try to clean up the mess that he made.
He wasn't very good.
He told us not to do it and we didn't listen. Given 52% voted for it I think it is a bit optimistic to assume there would not have been continuing pressure for a vote at some stage, the Leave tendency did not emerge because a vote was called.
As for running away, was there anyone who believed his and others' claims he would not have to quit if the referendum was lost? It was an obvious untruth, which he should be called out on but I don't think anyone expected otherwise.
Yes. Me. In my eyes he had no right to flounce.
Yes, he ran away from an almighty mess that he created. No prime minister has ever acted in such an irresponsible way. I loathe Johnson, but Cameron was even worse.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
Blair also promised us a 'Cool Britannia' culture renaissance while Cameron promised to make the UK an 'Aid Superpower'.
Neither happened.
Actually, both happened (allowing for political hyperbole). And both were killed off by the Brexity junta.
I have a friend in the FO, and the former DFID staff there are pretty pissed off. The cut in aid to 0.5% of GDP, of which most goes on either funding multinational responsibilities or asylum seekers here in the UK means the cuts to discretionary projects of DFID are brutal. Closing programmes of poverty mitigation, female emancipation and building civil institutions is not the best way to mark the Coronation across the Commonwealth.
From previous thread: Those Tennessee Republicans appear not to know their own history very well. Eastern Tennessee, like West Virginia, western North Carolina, Winston county in northern Alabama, and the rest of the Appalachians mostly supported the Union in the Civil War.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
This is v interesting. Why did these areas support the Union? And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?
Tennessee was very finely balanced on which side to join. They had an active and strong abolitionist party that included many of their most capable politicians
What I don’t understand (or one of the many things) is how the SNP could be so short of money when we were constantly told it had astonishing membership numbers and were amazing campaigners.
And what happened to all that money from those lottery winners, and from celebrity Scots abroad?
There’s still no evidence of outright fraud, but the finances seems to be an utter shitshow.
Rule One in finance is that if an intelligent person comes up with "this doesn't make sense - the numbers don't close" - then they don't.
Perhaps I don't understand finances, but I don't really understand how SNP figures are being so adamant there is no problem with the finances when a) the party had to be loaned 100k from its own Chief Executive, and b) major expenses like the famous campervan were only made clear to the leader on election and others had resigned over not being able to see details. It's unclear to me whether they've just been told by party officials all is well, or if they've actually now had a chance to look at the info themselves.
The whole thing with this situation that confuses me is that it seems like the problem is in the misallocation of money, and lax financial controls, there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that it was used for personal gain. I don't see any nuclear bomb in all of this to be honest, I can think of many situations where organisations have had similar problems. It is just quite surprising that an established party like the SNP - who are basically the party of institutional government in Scotland - seem to be completely imploding over it.
I did think that the Alex Salmond episode potentially revealed far greater cause for concern, than this.
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
Apparently there are local elections coming up so here are a few words of warning about assuming these are a good test of the public mood for general election. /1
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )…
And the suppression of the slave trade was an irrelevance as far as slavery in the South was concerned, since by then it was ‘self-sufficient’ in terms of its slaves. The 1842 treaty had little or nothing to do with the abolitionist movement, which was genuinely anti-slavery.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
Crikey, Sunak is a jumped up management consultant? At least you can look down on him from your more successful career as he only made millions from a successful financial career and has been both Chancellor of the Exchequer and PM. You must be seriously impressive to dish out such a put-down.
I have a very high bar for the premiership, I think Sunak is moderately competent, but lacks hinterland, experience and is prone to misjudgement. The clips of him having tea next to the supposedly senile Biden were embarrassing.
If one tries to place him in the 20th century, as opposed to this one, he would present as an incredibly minor figure. He still has time, of course.
He’s had less than a year as party leader which has been spent undoing the mess of his predecessors, the fall out from Covid and Ukraine. You talk of hinterland but of your list arguably only he and Starmer have non-political hinterlands and have had successful careers.
Cameron, Brown, what had they really experienced before politics? Before becoming PM Cameron had only been leader of the opposition in any senior level and had no major departmental experience - was “just” PM and left us with the I’ll thought out Brexit referendum then walked away from his mess. Brown was so politically obsessive that he couldn’t see anything outside of the Prism of “politics” probably because he never had a “hinterland”.
Blair did very well with a relatively short career in law before politics but also benefitted from a very tired argumentative Tory party but failed to push home any radical changes to the UK because he was too focussed on winning the next election instead of making real changes.
So maybe a jumped up management consultant, if given the time a lot of them had, might do a better job.
When I say hinterland I don’t mean “a great career before politics”. Roy Jenkins is probably the great example of hinterland. Rishi Sunak one of the worst examples.
Someone with a young family doesn’t have much time for a hinterland. Jenkins was older at the point you remember him.
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
There are many millions of people who have never been so affluent.
Not just oldies but Generation Xs who have paid off their mortgages or the working class who are living in a time of full employment.
Now there are likewise many millions who are struggling and there are underlying economic problems that the country as a whole faces but I don't hear any realistic answers to those from anyone.
On topic: Inflation is cooling in the US: "The central bank has spent the past year raising interest rates to fight rising prices, forcing seismic changes for many households and businesses.
Inflation easing could be welcome news that their approach is working, though prices for rent and food continue to push higher. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported prices rose 5 percent in the year ending in March, the smallest 12-month increase since May 2021 and down from the 6 percent rate notched in the year ending in February. In comparison with February prices, March prices rose 0.1 percent."
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
When did treaties stop being named after people?
Molotov and Ribbentrop ruined it for everyone.
Balfour and Sykes-Picot had a pretty good go too! Not to mention Hoare-Laval.
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
When did treaties stop being named after people?
Molotov and Ribbentrop ruined it for everyone.
I think they should have carried on naming treaties after shit beers like the English and Dutch did with the Treaty of Breda.
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )…
And the suppression of the slave trade was an irrelevance as far as slavery in the South was concerned, since by then it was ‘self-sufficient’ in terms of its slaves. The 1842 treaty had little or nothing to do with the abolitionist movement, which was genuinely anti-slavery.
Actually, there was support for suppressing the international slave trade, among slave owners. Since this would make their, errrr.. possessions increase in value in stable manner.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
There are many millions of people who have never been so affluent.
Not just oldies but Generation Xs who have paid off their mortgages or the working class who are living in a time of full employment.
Now there are likewise many millions who are struggling and there are underlying economic problems that the country as a whole faces but I don't hear any realistic answers to those from anyone.
I agree. Our biggest problem is inequality.
And the Labour Party will go out of its way to do diddly squat about the problem. Its entire electoral strategy seems to consist of tinkering around the edges to make itself look like a better management for the existing socio-economic settlement. Gently coaxing the well-off to trust them, whilst extending the middle finger in the general direction of the poor because they have nowhere else to go.
This, of course, is untrue. Come the election, they can choose to sit on their backsides in greater than usual numbers.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
Blair also promised us a 'Cool Britannia' culture renaissance while Cameron promised to make the UK an 'Aid Superpower'.
Neither happened.
Actually, both happened (allowing for political hyperbole). And both were killed off by the Brexity junta.
I have a friend in the FO, and the former DFID staff there are pretty pissed off. The cut in aid to 0.5% of GDP, of which most goes on either funding multinational responsibilities or asylum seekers here in the UK means the cuts to discretionary projects of DFID are brutal. Closing programmes of poverty mitigation, female emancipation and building civil institutions is not the best way to mark the Coronation across the Commonwealth.
They will be pleased when we no longer have to give £1bn to fund less effective and more corrupt EU aid programmes the.
Sunak's doing better with undecided voters as preferred PM than Starmer will certainly help him once we get to the debates
I don’t think this poll or the supplementaries are either surprising or as groundbreaking as the Times is making out. I think we know undecideds are basically ex-Tory voters who aren’t quite ready to jump back in bed with them after Truss and Johnson.
The fact a few seem to be more favourable to Starmer and Labour perhaps reflects a second tier of undecideds - left wingers who liked Corbyn, are flirting with the greens but may come home for Labour at the GE.
I think the most useful way of looking at polls is to take LLG vs RefCon, then add 4 or 5% on to the RefCon vote intention to reflect undecideds returning.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
of those who became PM:
Blair - Iraq Cameron - Brexit Brown - Banks collapse on his watch. We pay. May - A strong and stable red white and blue Brexit Sunak - Wait and see Boris - carelessly carried on being Boris Truss - Egregious uncosted tax cuts for the rich. This. Is. A. Disgrace.
Only Sunak has a fairly untrashed reputation.
Only Blair and Johnson can claim to have significantly transformed the direction of the country. It's looking ever more likely that Johnson's legacy will be consolidated rather than repudiated, even by the next Labour government.
Oh come on, Cameron can definitely claim to have significantly transformed the direction of the country. And he did it twice:
Once, in the immediate aftermath of the GFC and during the Eurozone crisis.
Secondly, by being in charge when Brexit was voted for.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Actually, on reflection, I'd say the choice of Rishi v Starmer (vs Davey) is the best we've had since Callaghan vs Thatcher (vs Steel). Many in the parties behind them are dross or nutters, but to an extent that was always the case.
Rishi is a jumped up management consultant who is flattered only by comparison with Johnson and Truss. Starmer is an insipid bureaucrat.
Brown / Cameron, Blair / Howard and Major / Blair were all better choices, as was Thatcher / Kinnock and Blair / Hague.
Let’s rank the last twenty odd years of major party leaders.
1. Blair 2. Cameron 3. Brown 4. Starmer 5. May 6. Howard 7. Sunak 8. Hague 9. Miliband 10. Johnson / Corbyn 11. Truss
Cameron gambled the UK's place in the EU - something which he wanted to secure - on a tactical move to neutralize a small right-wing party, and lost. He immolated his own leadership, together with four decades of British foreign and trade policy, and then ran away, leaving his Home Secretary to try to clean up the mess that he made.
He wasn't very good.
He told us not to do it and we didn't listen. Given 52% voted for it I think it is a bit optimistic to assume there would not have been continuing pressure for a vote at some stage, the Leave tendency did not emerge because a vote was called.
As for running away, was there anyone who believed his and others' claims he would not have to quit if the referendum was lost? It was an obvious untruth, which he should be called out on but I don't think anyone expected otherwise.
Yes. Me. In my eyes he had no right to flounce.
Yes, he ran away from an almighty mess that he created. No prime minister has ever acted in such an irresponsible way. I loathe Johnson, but Cameron was even worse.
Absolutely.
Worst PM since Eden. Absolutely atrocious legacy.
Still, at least he appeared in a One d Direction pop,video.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
From previous thread: Those Tennessee Republicans appear not to know their own history very well. Eastern Tennessee, like West Virginia, western North Carolina, Winston county in northern Alabama, and the rest of the Appalachians mostly supported the Union in the Civil War.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
This is v interesting. Why did these areas support the Union? And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?
The South enjoyed considerable sympathy in New York City, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland.
I’d say the pro-Union areas of the South were full of small farmers, but *without* a big slave population for them to both fear and despise. The existence of slave patrols gave poorer whites a big stake in backing the status quo.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
Get that lack of positive reasons to vote Labour. But what, exactly, are the positives to vote Tory? I can't see very many at all.
Yes, I agree. They are tired, painfully short of both talent and ideas, quite obnoxious in places (Braverman) and haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in recent years (to put it politely).
We are not, thankfully, anywhere near the kind of choice that the US had in 2020 but its not a great choice, no point in pretending otherwise.
Labour are not going to be any better. What a choice , shoot off my left foot or my right foot.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
There are many millions of people who have never been so affluent.
Not just oldies but Generation Xs who have paid off their mortgages or the working class who are living in a time of full employment.
Now there are likewise many millions who are struggling and there are underlying economic problems that the country as a whole faces but I don't hear any realistic answers to those from anyone.
I agree. Our biggest problem is inequality.
And the Labour Party will go out of its way to do diddly squat about the problem. Its entire electoral strategy seems to consist of tinkering around the edges to make itself look like a better management for the existing socio-economic settlement. Gently coaxing the well-off to trust them, whilst extending the middle finger in the general direction of the poor because they have nowhere else to go.
This, of course, is untrue. Come the election, they can choose to sit on their backsides in greater than usual numbers.
That is the unfortunate thing about democracy... you don't get exactly what you want.
Kind of related.... not sure if has been discussed on here but there was an article in the times yesterday about generational inequality.
If you read through the comments on the times website, there are many thousands of times readers, who I think probably fall within the 55-80 age bracket, who just think that there is absolutely no problem at all with generational inequality....
The main issue that I can foresee here is that intergenerational unfairness is not a salient issue with young people or old people. Very few young people are going to want to increase taxes on gran and grandad or cut their state pension. It may be the right thing to do but it isn't a vote winning policy. It would probably be a politically suicidal policy, like the 'dementia tax'.
Ultimately it can be quite frustrating watching people get lured in to voting for things that appear not to be in their interest but also, that is democracy.
Perhaps I don't understand finances, but I don't really understand how SNP figures are being so adamant there is no problem with the finances when a) the party had to be loaned 100k from its own Chief Executive, and b) major expenses like the famous campervan were only made clear to the leader on election and others had resigned over not being able to see details. It's unclear to me whether they've just been told by party officials all is well, or if they've actually now had a chance to look at the info themselves.
The whole thing with this situation that confuses me is that it seems like the problem is in the misallocation of money, and lax financial controls, there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that it was used for personal gain. I don't see any nuclear bomb in all of this to be honest, I can think of many situations where organisations have had similar problems. It is just quite surprising that an established party like the SNP - who are basically the party of institutional government in Scotland - seem to be completely imploding over it.
I did think that the Alex Salmond episode potentially revealed far greater cause for concern, than this.
Perhaps I don't understand finances, but I don't really understand how SNP figures are being so adamant there is no problem with the finances when a) the party had to be loaned 100k from its own Chief Executive, and b) major expenses like the famous campervan were only made clear to the leader on election and others had resigned over not being able to see details. It's unclear to me whether they've just been told by party officials all is well, or if they've actually now had a chance to look at the info themselves.
If you're talking about e.g. Blackford's comments, I think he's just being his usual bloviating blithering idiot self.
Everyone in the SNP who's still openly talking is going down with the ship basically, as it's clear now it's holed below the waterline.
What I don’t understand (or one of the many things) is how the SNP could be so short of money when we were constantly told it had astonishing membership numbers and were amazing campaigners.
And what happened to all that money from those lottery winners, and from celebrity Scots abroad?
There’s still no evidence of outright fraud, but the finances seems to be an utter shitshow.
They were lying about teh members, we know the £660K is missing assumed stolen as we have not had a referendum and teh lottery winners asked for their money back as the SNP took the piss, they were not stupid and had conditions on what it was spent on/had to be paid back etc.
Michael Shellenberger showed, to my satisfaction, that anti-nuclear causes in the US have sometimes been financed by men with investments in fossil fuels. I have read that the Russians financed “Green” movements in eastern Europe, presumably for similar reasons.
I wonder if something similar could be happening in Germany.
Chancellor Merkel’s switch on nuclear power puzzles me in one way. Her advanced degree is in quantum chemistry, which makes her next door to being a nuclear physicist, and qualifies her to understand the technical issues.
And doesn’t puzzle me in another. I think she was tempted by all those Green votes.
(I don’t believe she has given a real interview since her resignation.)
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
An interesting experiment.
"Hi. Come to this area. Build a factory. Pay your taxes as usual. But we will provide electrical power for free - up to X megawatts."
The Electoral Commission last night confirmed it had the legal power to send in its own financial team if the party failed to lodge its £4m accounts for 2022 on time.
It said the scenario remained “hypothetical” for now, however the clock is ticking.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
Germany is currently burning a lot more coal in electricity generation than it used to. (In the first quarter of 2023, it 29% of electricity came from coal from 12% back in 2021.)
Can anyone think of a reason why Germany might have dramatically increased the amount of electricity generation from coal?
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
Regarding SNP finances, they are going to have to find £600k from somewhere to replace the ring fenced donations that they have managed to spend on goodness knows what. This is in addition to funding their ongoing expenditure.
From previous thread: Those Tennessee Republicans appear not to know their own history very well. Eastern Tennessee, like West Virginia, western North Carolina, Winston county in northern Alabama, and the rest of the Appalachians mostly supported the Union in the Civil War.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
Correct, with the caveat re: "the rest of the Appalachians" who 'mostly supported the Union" did NOT include most of today's West Virginia, and also today's southwest Virginia. Where the bulk of the population was loyal to the Old Dominion, despite long-standing sectional & demographic differences compared to rest of Virginia such as Tidewater and Shenandoah Valley.
Most notable individual example was Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, born & raised in what is today WVa.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
Germany is currently burning a lot more coal in electricity generation than it used to. (In the first quarter of 2023, it 29% of electricity came from coal from 12% back in 2021.)
Can anyone think of a reason why Germany might have dramatically increased the amount of electricity generation from coal?
Not as windy?
Not as sunny?
Not as rainy, so less hydro?
If these are all incorrect, I gas you will have to tell me!
Michael Shellenberger showed, to my satisfaction, that anti-nuclear causes in the US have sometimes been financed by men with investments in fossil fuels. I have read that the Russians financed “Green” movements in eastern Europe, presumably for similar reasons.
I wonder if something similar could be happening in Germany.
Chancellor Merkel’s switch on nuclear power puzzles me in one way. Her advanced degree is in quantum chemistry, which makes her next door to being a nuclear physicist, and qualifies her to understand the technical issues.
And doesn’t puzzle me in another. I think she was tempted by all those Green votes.
(I don’t believe she has given a real interview since her resignation.)
Cross posted at Patterico's Pontifications.
I think that's spot on.
The Green's were very anti-nuclear, and were regularly getting 30% in polls: she wanted their votes.
It's also worth remembering that none of the remaining German nuclear power plants are in particularly good condition. Unlike the French, they didn't have a standardised design and economies of scale. Instead you had a dozen practically one off designs*, where maintenance was increasingly expensive and required the fabrication of custom parts.
There was also a big lobbying effort alongside the greens from the German generating companies, to get permission to close older plants, because they were losing money on them. (They were selling kilowatts of electricity at spot prices, but had high maintenance costs on plants.) They made a lot more money by importing gas from Russia, using a modern CCGT and selling at spot, and they could do so without anywhere near as many employees. Plus, of course, with more and more renewables coming onto the grid, flexible gas generation caused them far fewer problems with grid frequency.
But - as we all know now - this led to Germany becoming very dependent on Russian gas.
I want to thank Nigelb for illustrating my general point that many in both the UK and the US are uncomfortable in giving credits, as well as debits, to our nations on the issue of slavery.
The Electoral Commission last night confirmed it had the legal power to send in its own financial team if the party failed to lodge its £4m accounts for 2022 on time.
It said the scenario remained “hypothetical” for now, however the clock is ticking.
I wonder how many SNP leaders are hoping for this - then they can try and claim "We were sorting it out, and then the bastard English came in to try and destroy independence by torpedoing our rescue efforts".
From previous thread: Those Tennessee Republicans appear not to know their own history very well. Eastern Tennessee, like West Virginia, western North Carolina, Winston county in northern Alabama, and the rest of the Appalachians mostly supported the Union in the Civil War.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
This is v interesting. Why did these areas support the Union? And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?
The South enjoyed considerable sympathy in New York City, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland.
I’d say the pro-Union areas of the South were full of small farmers, but *without* a big slave population for them to both fear and despise. The existence of slave patrols gave poorer whites a big stake in backing the status quo.
Correct with respect to the "Border" states of MD, KY and MO.
Situation in NYC was rather different. In the lead-up to the war, from election of Abraham Lincoln to the attack on Fort Sumter, many New Yorkers wanted to find a compromise, to the point that the mayor opined that maybe NYC could stay neutral. Plus majority of Irish Americans in city (and elsewhere) were none-too-keen on limiting slavery, let alone freeing the slaves.
HOWEVER, once the shooting began, there was a (partial) sea change, including among the Irish.
I say partial, because imposition of conscription led directly to the Draft Riots of the Summer of 1863, which still remains the most serious civil disturbance in US history.
But even this has LESS to do with sympathy for Confederacy, and was MORE about the obvious economic discrimination of drafting "poor men for a rich man's fight".
Regarding SNP finances, they are going to have to find £600k from somewhere to replace the ring fenced donations that they have managed to spend on goodness knows what. This is in addition to funding their ongoing expenditure.
Challenging.
Yeah but it is just misallocated funds, is it really objectively that much of a scandal ?
It is quite bizarre that they can tear themselves apart and do so much damage to their cause over this.
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
The one I used to go to wasn't all that bad - it was too small for the town, thus what gym equipment it had was frequently unavailable due to excessive demand - but, nonetheless, not too bad. Well-maintained and nearly everything worked. Possibly because this area is comparatively well off, and we still have the two-tier system so what money the district council does have isn't all syphoned off to pay to wipe old peoples' arses, which is dealt with at county level. It's why leisure centres at least still exist, whereas the entirety of the road maintenance workforce now seems to consist of one bloke in a van with a bucket of black goop that is occasionally poured into one of the craters.
Still much better off since I discovered my works gym though. Not, unlike the leisure centre, stuffed to the rafters with about a thousand other buggers whenever you need to use it, and entirely free of groups of poser lads who monopolise the kit for hours on end.
Regardless, if you're waiting for these services to get better then I wouldn't hold your breath. Continual decay of the public realm is the future, given that elderly care and benefits will keep chewing an ever-increasing share of expenditure, and absolutely nobody wants to pay more tax to deal with this or any other problem. Eventually nearly all of us are going to end up having to pay private sector providers for these kinds of facilities, or go without.
Regarding SNP finances, they are going to have to find £600k from somewhere to replace the ring fenced donations that they have managed to spend on goodness knows what. This is in addition to funding their ongoing expenditure.
Challenging.
Yeah but it is just misallocated funds, is it really objectively that much of a scandal ?
It is quite bizarre that they can tear themselves apart and do so much damage to their cause over this.
You seem quite certain that the money just spent itself. Why is that?
Why ban the legally responsible people from seeing the finances?
With respect to Northern "Copperheads" who either outright supported the Confederacy during the US Civil War, or (much more common) favored some kind of compromise peace, their influence was GREATLY exaggerated at the time, particularly by Republican propaganda.
When push can to shove, as with Morgan's Raid though southern Indiana and southern Ohio in Summer of 1864, actual aid and comfort given by local Copperheads to the raiders was virtually nonexistent.
Which aroused a LOT of negative comments from the Rebs involved, who noted that these alleged Southern sympathizers were rushing to join local Home Guards to oppose and help chase them down.
"Morgan had sent spy Thomas Hines and a party of 25 Confederates, posing as a Union patrol, on a secret mission into Indiana in June to determine if the local Copperheads would support or join Morgan's impending raid. After visiting the local Copperhead leader, Dr. William A. Bowles, Hines learned that no desired support would be forthcoming. He and his scouts were soon identified as actually being Confederates, and, in a small skirmish near Leavenworth, Indiana, Hines had to abandon his men as he swam across the Ohio River under gunfire. He wandered around Kentucky for a week seeking information on Morgan's whereabouts."
Regarding SNP finances, they are going to have to find £600k from somewhere to replace the ring fenced donations that they have managed to spend on goodness knows what. This is in addition to funding their ongoing expenditure.
Challenging.
Yeah but it is just misallocated funds, is it really objectively that much of a scandal ?
It is quite bizarre that they can tear themselves apart and do so much damage to their cause over this.
That doesn't quite settle it. Brinks-Mat was a misallocation of gold.
From previous thread: Those Tennessee Republicans appear not to know their own history very well. Eastern Tennessee, like West Virginia, western North Carolina, Winston county in northern Alabama, and the rest of the Appalachians mostly supported the Union in the Civil War.
Lincoln knew this, and looked for ways to get Union forces down to the area.
This continued for many years after the war, so much so that for decades two of the most persistently Republican congressional districts in the entire US were in eastern Tennessee.
(There were northerners who supported the South, too, often called "Copperheads", after the poisonous snake.)
This is v interesting. Why did these areas support the Union? And were there commensurate areas in the north who supported the South?
The South enjoyed considerable sympathy in New York City, Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland.
I’d say the pro-Union areas of the South were full of small farmers, but *without* a big slave population for them to both fear and despise. The existence of slave patrols gave poorer whites a big stake in backing the status quo.
Not exclusively, such as the Free State of Jones, which fought the Confederacy from the swamps of Southern Mississipi. There is an interesting 2016 film on Netflix about it.
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
Germany is currently burning a lot more coal in electricity generation than it used to. (In the first quarter of 2023, it 29% of electricity came from coal from 12% back in 2021.)
Can anyone think of a reason why Germany might have dramatically increased the amount of electricity generation from coal?
Because their policy makers put their economic needs before posturing at climate summits?
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
Yes. Lack of money, and it's not a statutory requirement, so some may not even have anything.
I want to thank Nigelb for illustrating my general point that many in both the UK and the US are uncomfortable in giving credits, as well as debits, to our nations on the issue of slavery.
But an honest history should include both.
Weaker peoples have, sadly, always been enslaved by stronger ones. The Western nations are the only ones who gave up slavery more or less because of a collective decision it was the right thing to do.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Rishi and the team need to deliver real progress on inflation by the end of this year, then set out sensible and prudent financial and other policies by Spring 2024.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
Germany is currently burning a lot more coal in electricity generation than it used to. (In the first quarter of 2023, it 29% of electricity came from coal from 12% back in 2021.)
Can anyone think of a reason why Germany might have dramatically increased the amount of electricity generation from coal?
Because their policy makers put their economic needs before posturing at climate summits?
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Casino has walked in on his fiancee having sex with her lover, and wants to appoint him best man at the wedding.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Rishi and the team need to deliver real progress on inflation by the end of this year, then set out sensible and prudent financial and other policies by Spring 2024.
I expect these amazing policies to consist of an endless age of austerity (except with respect to state pension rises,) in order to fund some tax cuts. It'll probably go down quite well.
Just got back from London, where I've been to lunch at Ronnie Scott's with my folks. We invited my best friend Julia from Siberia who I used to work with when I lived in London
She gave me a late birthday present; the book 'Post Office' by Charles Bukowski
I thought I should mention it to @kinabalu , who recommended it to me back in November
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
The correlation between cheap energy and growth isn't complete. Nigeria and South Korea are the exceptions in each direction.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Rishi and the team need to deliver real progress on inflation by the end of this year, then set out sensible and prudent financial and other policies by Spring 2024.
I expect these amazing policies to consist of an endless age of austerity (except with respect to state pension rises,) in order to fund some tax cuts. It'll probably go down quite well.
Indeed. There are few limits to the doublethink the natural party of government is able to inculcate in the voting population.
Anyway, Sunday evening and a productive domestic day of pressure washing the front and back patios and disposing of lots of detritus and plastic plant pots from the garden. And a moderately warm and bright afternoon.
The question is then what music for this evening’s roast preparation? Not autumnal pub Sunday classics, nor jingly scouse indy pop this time. Stravinsky’s rite of spring. Not popular with the family (despite my best efforts to compare it with the Star Wars and Indians jones film music) but highly seasonal and getting me in a suitably thumpy mood for watching episode 3 of Succession this evening.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
The correlation between cheap energy and growth isn't complete. Nigeria and South Korea are the exceptions in each direction.
Sure. I didn’t say it was. It’s explanatory but insufficient without rule of law etc, indeed natiral resource is often correlated with corruption or baumol’s curse.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Casino has walked in on his fiancee having sex with her lover, and wants to appoint him best man at the wedding.
The Conservative Party, for all its faults, gets a grip on the nation's finances.
Labour does not. A vote for Labour means even higher taxes or more borrowing.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Rishi and the team need to deliver real progress on inflation by the end of this year, then set out sensible and prudent financial and other policies by Spring 2024.
I expect these amazing policies to consist of an endless age of austerity (except with respect to state pension rises,) in order to fund some tax cuts. It'll probably go down quite well.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
The correlation between cheap energy and growth isn't complete. Nigeria and South Korea are the exceptions in each direction.
Certainly not complete. Nigeria is more easily explained as the resource curse: if you export your cheap energy rather than using it domestically then you’re selling the country out. The US is the world’s largest oil producer, yet they don’t export that much. They use it.
South Korea a harder one. But then nothing is ever explained by one single factor. I wonder if there’s a phenomenon (let’s call it bullied younger brother syndrome) whereby a country that was treated like shit by its neighbour but understands enough about what made them successful creates an economic miracle by working famed hard, improving on the neighbour’s formula and exacting a kind of long term revenge.
Just got back from London, where I've been to lunch at Ronnie Scott's with my folks. We invited my best friend Julia from Siberia who I used to work with when I lived in London
She gave me a late birthday present; the book 'Post Office' by Charles Bukowski
I thought I should mention it to @kinabalu , who recommended it to me back in November
I had a great afternoon with my family too.
The pub had a live musician who played a pitch perfect cover of David Gray - Babylon on his guitar and mic whilst we were having lunch, which I finished off with a delicious muscat and caramalised bread and butter pudding with cream custard.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
They won't, in their present form. The public finances are hugely affected by growth or no growth. The Trussite agenda of borrowing to fund some tax cuts was actually the lower-cost option - far less than a recession will cost. Furthermore, in several instances Sunak has spent quite freely. Paying the BOE £11bn of taxpayers' money to fund it selling bonds at a loss. Coughing up billions to the EU in fines for importing Chinese tat (or something). Hundreds of millions more to the French for doing f**k all about the boats. Hunt and Sunak seem to save the penny-pinching for the taxpayer.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Will this new & improved "Conservative" campaign "to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by" {fill in the blank}, feature any of Rishi Sunak's FOUR predecessors at No. 10.
The Tory tribute to the Three Stooges?
Strategically (and tactically) probably best NOT to shred reputation for fiscal (or any other) rectitude immediately prior to making it the slogan on the side Tory battle bus for impending GE?
I would add that Britain feels higher tax than it is because it weighs so heavily on income versus wealth, thus hitting “up and coming” professionals like Casino.
Deliberate Tory policy to cosset the core vote. And amusing that PB Tories want more of it.
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
The one I used to go to wasn't all that bad - it was too small for the town, thus what gym equipment it had was frequently unavailable due to excessive demand - but, nonetheless, not too bad. Well-maintained and nearly everything worked. Possibly because this area is comparatively well off, and we still have the two-tier system so what money the district council does have isn't all syphoned off to pay to wipe old peoples' arses, which is dealt with at county level. It's why leisure centres at least still exist, whereas the entirety of the road maintenance workforce now seems to consist of one bloke in a van with a bucket of black goop that is occasionally poured into one of the craters.
Still much better off since I discovered my works gym though. Not, unlike the leisure centre, stuffed to the rafters with about a thousand other buggers whenever you need to use it, and entirely free of groups of poser lads who monopolise the kit for hours on end.
Regardless, if you're waiting for these services to get better then I wouldn't hold your breath. Continual decay of the public realm is the future, given that elderly care and benefits will keep chewing an ever-increasing share of expenditure, and absolutely nobody wants to pay more tax to deal with this or any other problem. Eventually nearly all of us are going to end up having to pay private sector providers for these kinds of facilities, or go without.
I've got a private sector gym membership for when I visit my mother. It is in a hotel, £40 a month, the gym is empty, state of the art equipment, a sauna, jacuzzi, steam room, swimming pool (if only 12m) and it is open every day from 6 until 10. The contrast is shocking.
I've just been to the Council gym. The other thing is that there is no entrance barrier, anyone can just walk in and go straight in to the gym or pool. If you want to register your presence, you have to wait in a queue with the walk in members of the public. There is no enforcement of payment.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Will this new & improved "Conservative" campaign "to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by" {fill in the blank}, feature any of Rishi Sunak's FOUR predecessors at No. 10.
The Tory tribute to the Three Stooges?
Strategically (and tactically) probably best NOT to shred reputation for fiscal (or any other) rectitude immediately prior to making it the slogan on the side Tory battle bus for impending GE?
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
I have been saying this for some time.
Fair enough. Can you summarise in three paras or less, your preferred way forward? Unsarcastic question
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
Not in the slightest. Unemployment has reached record lows, and we're on a clear path to balance the budget.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
True, but we also have little to no indication that Labour would do any better, and not a few indications that they would probably be worse.
A general point about the teaching of history on slavery: In the US, we should definitely include the bad parts -- but that should not lead us to exclude the anti-slavery parts. In this nation, for example, we should include the campaign against the Barbary pirates, and the small part the US played in suppressing the West African slave trade.
In the UK, I think your schools should teach about the work of the West Africa Squadron. (The US Navy contributed to that in a small way, something agreed to, formally, in an 1842 treaty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster–Ashburton_Treaty )
But I think, above all, we should teach that slavery continued into modern times, in the Gulag, the Laogai, and in other parts of the world.
What do you mean continued in modern times...its still going on look at the eu selling slaves to libya
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
They won't, in their present form. The public finances are hugely affected by growth or no growth. The Trussite agenda of borrowing to fund some tax cuts was actually the lower-cost option - far less than a recession will cost. Furthermore, in several instances Sunak has spent quite freely. Paying the BOE £11bn of taxpayers' money to fund it selling bonds at a loss. Coughing up billions to the EU in fines for importing Chinese tat (or something). Hundreds of millions more to the French for doing f**k all about the boats. Hunt and Sunak seem to save the penny-pinching for the taxpayer.
That's cherrypicking, misrepresenting, and then hugely exaggerating some disconnected pieces of evidence to support a conclusion you'd already reached.
Trusses agenda of borrowing to fund tax cuts , with seemingly no care to demonstrate how it would in future balance the books, was just as bonkers as Brown in 2010.
Just got back from London, where I've been to lunch at Ronnie Scott's with my folks. We invited my best friend Julia from Siberia who I used to work with when I lived in London
She gave me a late birthday present; the book 'Post Office' by Charles Bukowski
I thought I should mention it to @kinabalu , who recommended it to me back in November
I had a great afternoon with my family too.
The pub had a live musician who played a pitch perfect cover of David Gray - Babylon on his guitar and mic whilst we were having lunch, which I finished off with a delicious muscat and caramalised bread and butter pudding with cream custard.
IF you're ever lucky enough to visit New Orleans (and survive the journey from the airport) check out that classic NO dessert - bread pudding.
What you just enjoyed sounds pretty similar. Great way for restaurants to use stale bread, win-win for them & diners.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
None of the three main parties seem particularly inclined to bring spending under control. But of the three, the Conservatives seem the least inclined to me to let spending absolutely rip.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
Borrowing was out of control before Truss.
UK Debt was 69% GDP when the Tories took over in 2010; it's 99% now. 13 years of restoring 'full balance and rectitude to the public finances' LOL.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
Living standards in the USA are pretty stagnant for low-middle earners, with life expectancy going into reverse, notwithstanding its higher nominal GDP growth rate.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
Not in the slightest. Unemployment has reached record lows, and we're on a clear path to balance the budget.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
Tory austerity, then Brexit and Covid have flatlined growth. The Tories are effectively offering even more austerity, collapsing public services to boot.
The low unemployment rate, which is to be welcomed of course, is a factor of Britain’s flexible labour laws, and is seen worldwide in countries with a similar approach. That approach pre-dates the current government.
Thought I would moan about the pathetic state of my Council leisure centre. It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday. The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money. In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs. My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month. A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little. Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
The one I used to go to wasn't all that bad - it was too small for the town, thus what gym equipment it had was frequently unavailable due to excessive demand - but, nonetheless, not too bad. Well-maintained and nearly everything worked. Possibly because this area is comparatively well off, and we still have the two-tier system so what money the district council does have isn't all syphoned off to pay to wipe old peoples' arses, which is dealt with at county level. It's why leisure centres at least still exist, whereas the entirety of the road maintenance workforce now seems to consist of one bloke in a van with a bucket of black goop that is occasionally poured into one of the craters.
Still much better off since I discovered my works gym though. Not, unlike the leisure centre, stuffed to the rafters with about a thousand other buggers whenever you need to use it, and entirely free of groups of poser lads who monopolise the kit for hours on end.
Regardless, if you're waiting for these services to get better then I wouldn't hold your breath. Continual decay of the public realm is the future, given that elderly care and benefits will keep chewing an ever-increasing share of expenditure, and absolutely nobody wants to pay more tax to deal with this or any other problem. Eventually nearly all of us are going to end up having to pay private sector providers for these kinds of facilities, or go without.
I've got a private sector gym membership for when I visit my mother. It is in a hotel, £40 a month, the gym is empty, state of the art equipment, a sauna, jacuzzi, steam room, swimming pool (if only 12m) and it is open every day from 6 until 10. The contrast is shocking.
I've just been to the Council gym. The other thing is that there is no entrance barrier, anyone can just walk in and go straight in to the gym or pool. If you want to register your presence, you have to wait in a queue with the walk in members of the public. There is no enforcement of payment.
Thus they aren't helping themselves. Management of these kinds of services is typically outsourced to a subcontractor nowadays. The council would do well to sack off the current one and hire a better-organised provider, by the sound of it.
Not surprised re: the private alternative. I used to use a similar such facility, which was attached to a hotel in that case but functionally a separate business. It also had great facilities and enough kit that you were rarely left with the other people getting in the way problem, even when it was busy. Local authority places would doubtless be like that as well - if they were better funded.
Whether through tax or through direct subscription, one way or another, if you want anything decent then you have to pay for it.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
Borrowing was out of control before Truss.
UK Debt was 69% GDP when the Tories took over in 2010; it's 99% now. 13 years of restoring 'full balance and rectitude to the public finances' LOL.
To be fair, much of that was run up during covid, when all western democracies did the same. I'd argue that this was a result of far-too-stringent lockdown policies. Which, of course, Kier Starmer wnted more of.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
Not in the slightest. Unemployment has reached record lows, and we're on a clear path to balance the budget.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
31% of German energy is produced by coal, compared with 1.9% of the UK, yet the latter literally sits on a bed of coal.
What possible excuse is there for this? And to what extent is the German exporting miracle reliant on cheap but obnoxiously polluting energy?
The case for climate change import tariffs. But yes, a big portion of Germany's industrial might comes from burning lignite, the dirtiest of coal.
The quicker we can accelerate towards virtually unlimited cheap renewable energy the better. Cheap energy isn’t a panacea - look at Iran or Venezuela - but the history of global growth and recession tracks extremely closely to a lagged history of the oil price.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
Speaking largely anecdotally, I feel like the GDP gap can be explained by cheap energy, economies of scale, and a culture of investment (government, venture capital, entrepreneurialism).
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
Living standards in the USA are pretty stagnant for low-middle earners, with life expectancy going into reverse, notwithstanding its higher nominal GDP growth rate.
What is the path you see for the UK?
The US has got some of it right, but as you say it is deeply flawed in other measures.
However, see the points I make about what *does* work, and add the additional distribution achieved in some European countries.
The average Western European is better off than the average Brit or even American, I think. The FT guy has done some good charts on comparative standards of living across the income distribution.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
Not in the slightest. Unemployment has reached record lows, and we're on a clear path to balance the budget.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
the budget only looks like it may balance in the future because Hunt has put in makey-believe numbers from 2024 and beyond.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
Rishi and the team need to deliver real progress on inflation by the end of this year, then set out sensible and prudent financial and other policies by Spring 2024.
I expect these amazing policies to consist of an endless age of austerity (except with respect to state pension rises,) in order to fund some tax cuts. It'll probably go down quite well.
Indeed. There are few limits to the doublethink the natural party of government is able to inculcate in the voting population.
Anyway, Sunday evening and a productive domestic day of pressure washing the front and back patios and disposing of lots of detritus and plastic plant pots from the garden. And a moderately warm and bright afternoon.
The question is then what music for this evening’s roast preparation? Not autumnal pub Sunday classics, nor jingly scouse indy pop this time. Stravinsky’s rite of spring. Not popular with the family (despite my best efforts to compare it with the Star Wars and Indians jones film music) but highly seasonal and getting me in a suitably thumpy mood for watching episode 3 of Succession this evening.
Cooking on a Sunday requires a background of Miles Davis, Kind of Blue.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
What evidence we have suggests that the Tories can only manage an economy into the ground.
Not in the slightest. Unemployment has reached record lows, and we're on a clear path to balance the budget.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
'...we're on a clear path to balance the budget.'
Is that a different 'clear path' to the one set out in the June 2010 budget which promised that 'the structural current deficit will be eliminated by 2014-15'?
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
They won't, in their present form. The public finances are hugely affected by growth or no growth. The Trussite agenda of borrowing to fund some tax cuts was actually the lower-cost option - far less than a recession will cost. Furthermore, in several instances Sunak has spent quite freely. Paying the BOE £11bn of taxpayers' money to fund it selling bonds at a loss. Coughing up billions to the EU in fines for importing Chinese tat (or something). Hundreds of millions more to the French for doing f**k all about the boats. Hunt and Sunak seem to save the penny-pinching for the taxpayer.
That's cherrypicking, misrepresenting, and then hugely exaggerating some disconnected pieces of evidence to support a conclusion you'd already reached.
Trusses agenda of borrowing to fund tax cuts , with seemingly no care to demonstrate how it would in future balance the books, was just as bonkers as Brown in 2010.
It's so dispiriting to see the Tories still preferred on the economy after all the compelling evidence to the contrary of recent (and indeed not so recent) years.
I hope the people with this view are never called up for jury service.
The Tories have been wrong about many things. However, to me, it's hard to point to anything the Tories were wrong about and say that Labour's proposals were better - and quute easy to find examples where Labour's proposals look worse. I still trust the Tories more than Labour on most things. The are where, for me, the Tories are weakest is housing (which of course has a big impact on the economy). But where is the Labiur campaign saying we will build more houses? Where is Labour saying we will drive down house prices?
Yes, probably spent too long in lockdown, Labour wanted longer.
Probably a mistake to undermine investment in the north sea with a windfall tax: Labour want a bigger one.
Arguably taxing too much for economic growth: guess who wants more taxes?
Probably, the government overdid the generosity of support on energy prices which should have been more targeted. But Labour wanted more.
And frankly the lord knows what Labour's answers to the public sector strikes is. But it won't have improved the public finances, that's for sure.
Positive reasons for voting Labour are very thin on the ground but there are quite a lot of reasons for not voting Tory.
This is a good summary.
One might be tempted to vote Tory for the same reasons as in 2015 - to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances by 2027-2028, this time with no landmines like the EU referendum along the way.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
One might be tempted to vote Tory 'to restore full balance and rectitude to the public finances'?
That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Not in the slightest.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
Borrowing was out of control before Truss.
UK Debt was 69% GDP when the Tories took over in 2010; it's 99% now. 13 years of restoring 'full balance and rectitude to the public finances' LOL.
Debt was 69% and shooting up when the Tories took over (post GFC)
They steadied the spiralling debt over the next decade
Then there was covid
Then Ukraine
What do you think the debt level would be now if SKS had been in charge post GFC, and during the interminable period that he wanted to extend covid restrictions?
Comments
I did think that the Alex Salmond episode potentially revealed far greater cause for concern, than this.
https://twitter.com/p_surridge/status/1647612063072616449?s=20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
And the suppression of the slave trade was an irrelevance as far as slavery in the South was concerned, since by then it was ‘self-sufficient’ in terms of its slaves.
The 1842 treaty had little or nothing to do with the abolitionist movement, which was genuinely anti-slavery.
"The central bank has spent the past year raising interest rates to fight rising prices, forcing seismic changes for many households and businesses.
Inflation easing could be welcome news that their approach is working, though prices for rent and food continue to push higher. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported prices rose 5 percent in the year ending in March, the smallest 12-month increase since May 2021 and down from the 6 percent rate notched in the year ending in February. In comparison with February prices, March prices rose 0.1 percent."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/12/cpi-march-fed-prices/
And I expect it will soon in the UK, for related reasons. Which would help the incumbents to, at least, reduce their losses. Or am I wrong about that?
This, of course, is untrue. Come the election, they can choose to sit on their backsides in greater than usual numbers.
The fact a few seem to be more favourable to Starmer and Labour perhaps reflects a second tier of undecideds - left wingers who liked Corbyn, are flirting with the greens but may come home for Labour at the GE.
I think the most useful way of looking at polls is to take LLG vs RefCon, then add 4 or 5% on to the RefCon vote intention to reflect undecideds returning.
Once, in the immediate aftermath of the GFC and during the Eurozone crisis.
Secondly, by being in charge when Brexit was voted for.
Worst PM since Eden. Absolutely atrocious legacy.
Still, at least he appeared in a One d Direction pop,video.
I’m increasingly convinced the gap in GDP growth of the US vs most of the rest of the developed world in the last decade is down to their significantly cheaper industrial and domestic energy costs.
Iceland is another example with its almost unlimited geothermal power, way in excess of what it actually needs. It’s now a big aluminium and carbon fibre manufacturer, among other things.
Maybe Germany with its lignite and the old Russian gas imports was up to the same thing, just in a much dirtier and geopolitically hazardous way.
Countries that build up huge cheap energy resources, and then use them to give a competitive advantage to domestic industry (rather than exporting the energy) do well.
I’d say the pro-Union areas of the South were full of small farmers, but *without* a big slave population for them to both fear and despise. The existence of slave patrols gave poorer whites a big stake in backing the status quo.
Kind of related.... not sure if has been discussed on here but there was an article in the times yesterday about generational inequality.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-ok-boomer-when-privilege-gets-dangerous-fh2zqt3kk
If you read through the comments on the times website, there are many thousands of times readers, who I think probably fall within the 55-80 age bracket, who just think that there is absolutely no problem at all with generational inequality....
The main issue that I can foresee here is that intergenerational unfairness is not a salient issue with young people or old people. Very few young people are going to want to increase taxes on gran and grandad or cut their state pension. It may be the right thing to do but it isn't a vote winning policy. It would probably be a politically suicidal policy, like the 'dementia tax'.
Ultimately it can be quite frustrating watching people get lured in to voting for things that appear not to be in their interest but also, that is democracy.
I wonder if something similar could be happening in Germany.
Chancellor Merkel’s switch on nuclear power puzzles me in one way. Her advanced degree is in quantum chemistry, which makes her next door to being a nuclear physicist, and qualifies her to understand the technical issues.
And doesn’t puzzle me in another. I think she was tempted by all those Green votes.
(I don’t believe she has given a real interview since her resignation.)
Cross posted at Patterico's Pontifications.
"Hi. Come to this area. Build a factory. Pay your taxes as usual. But we will provide electrical power for free - up to X megawatts."
The Electoral Commission last night confirmed it had the legal power to send in its own financial team if the party failed to lodge its £4m accounts for 2022 on time.
It said the scenario remained “hypothetical” for now, however the clock is ticking.
Can anyone think of a reason why Germany might have dramatically increased the amount of electricity generation from coal?
It serves a population of 100,000 and the only leisure centre in it but it closes at 7pm on Sunday.
The swimming pool closes at 7 but they turn off the sauna at 6 to save money.
In the week, you can only go swimming on two evenings, the rest of the time it is let out to clubs.
My 'family' membership, for myself and my son who goes to a swimming lesson once a week is now £73 per month.
A lot of the gym equipment is broken. The state of the place is poor. However there are a large amount of staff, who have an office and seem to do very little.
Is this a common problem with Council leisure centres?
Challenging.
Most notable individual example was Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, born & raised in what is today WVa.
Not as sunny?
Not as rainy, so less hydro?
If these are all incorrect, I gas you will have to tell me!
The Green's were very anti-nuclear, and were regularly getting 30% in polls: she wanted their votes.
It's also worth remembering that none of the remaining German nuclear power plants are in particularly good condition. Unlike the French, they didn't have a standardised design and economies of scale. Instead you had a dozen practically one off designs*, where maintenance was increasingly expensive and required the fabrication of custom parts.
There was also a big lobbying effort alongside the greens from the German generating companies, to get permission to close older plants, because they were losing money on them. (They were selling kilowatts of electricity at spot prices, but had high maintenance costs on plants.) They made a lot more money by importing gas from Russia, using a modern CCGT and selling at spot, and they could do so without anywhere near as many employees. Plus, of course, with more and more renewables coming onto the grid, flexible gas generation caused them far fewer problems with grid frequency.
But - as we all know now - this led to Germany becoming very dependent on Russian gas.
* We were guilty of this too.
But an honest history should include both.
Situation in NYC was rather different. In the lead-up to the war, from election of Abraham Lincoln to the attack on Fort Sumter, many New Yorkers wanted to find a compromise, to the point that the mayor opined that maybe NYC could stay neutral. Plus majority of Irish Americans in city (and elsewhere) were none-too-keen on limiting slavery, let alone freeing the slaves.
HOWEVER, once the shooting began, there was a (partial) sea change, including among the Irish.
I say partial, because imposition of conscription led directly to the Draft Riots of the Summer of 1863, which still remains the most serious civil disturbance in US history.
But even this has LESS to do with sympathy for Confederacy, and was MORE about the obvious economic discrimination of drafting "poor men for a rich man's fight".
It is quite bizarre that they can tear themselves apart and do so much damage to their cause over this.
Still much better off since I discovered my works gym though. Not, unlike the leisure centre, stuffed to the rafters with about a thousand other buggers whenever you need to use it, and entirely free of groups of poser lads who monopolise the kit for hours on end.
Regardless, if you're waiting for these services to get better then I wouldn't hold your breath. Continual decay of the public realm is the future, given that elderly care and benefits will keep chewing an ever-increasing share of expenditure, and absolutely nobody wants to pay more tax to deal with this or any other problem. Eventually nearly all of us are going to end up having to pay private sector providers for these kinds of facilities, or go without.
Why ban the legally responsible people from seeing the finances?
When push can to shove, as with Morgan's Raid though southern Indiana and southern Ohio in Summer of 1864, actual aid and comfort given by local Copperheads to the raiders was virtually nonexistent.
Which aroused a LOT of negative comments from the Rebs involved, who noted that these alleged Southern sympathizers were rushing to join local Home Guards to oppose and help chase them down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan's_Raid
For example, from above:
"Morgan had sent spy Thomas Hines and a party of 25 Confederates, posing as a Union patrol, on a secret mission into Indiana in June to determine if the local Copperheads would support or join Morgan's impending raid. After visiting the local Copperhead leader, Dr. William A. Bowles, Hines learned that no desired support would be forthcoming. He and his scouts were soon identified as actually being Confederates, and, in a small skirmish near Leavenworth, Indiana, Hines had to abandon his men as he swam across the Ohio River under gunfire. He wandered around Kentucky for a week seeking information on Morgan's whereabouts."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111/
Sounds like it's a waste of money.
A new "long-term economic plan" campaign can't be ruled out.
A Labour government will halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system.
https://twitter.com/keir_starmer/status/1647588826938744833
How?
This is fantasy world nonsense.
How are you going to half serious violent crime?
Tell us.
It’s b*llocks!
https://twitter.com/dominicfarrell/status/1647592800630845443
X
Wrong. Please pay attention in future.That'd be a bit like appointing Ratner to restore confidence in the jewellery trade.
Starmer could do a lot worse than re-run that one.
She gave me a late birthday present; the book 'Post Office' by Charles Bukowski
I thought I should mention it to @kinabalu , who recommended it to me back in November
Ironically, none of those are because the US has less regulation or even lower tax, indeed these things seem to be much more complicated in the US.
There is a path for the UK, but it’s pretty much the opposite of what Sunak thinks.
Anyway, Sunday evening and a productive domestic day of pressure washing the front and back patios and disposing of lots of detritus and plastic plant pots from the garden. And a moderately warm and bright afternoon.
The question is then what music for this evening’s roast preparation? Not autumnal pub Sunday classics, nor jingly scouse indy pop this time. Stravinsky’s rite of spring. Not popular with the family (despite my best efforts to compare it with the Star Wars and Indians jones film music) but highly seasonal and getting me in a suitably thumpy mood for watching episode 3 of Succession this evening.
Aside from the Truss aberration that's exactly what the Conservative Party stand for, and the mess they had to clean up after Brown.
Labour definitely want to spend more. That can only come from higher taxes or more borrowing.
Labour does not. A vote for Labour means even higher taxes or more borrowing.
South Korea a harder one. But then nothing is ever explained by one single factor. I wonder if there’s a phenomenon (let’s call it bullied younger brother syndrome) whereby a country that was treated like shit by its neighbour but understands enough about what made them successful creates an economic miracle by working famed hard, improving on the neighbour’s formula and exacting a kind of long term revenge.
See exhibits a, b and c: Korea, Poland, Ireland.
The pub had a live musician who played a pitch perfect cover of David Gray - Babylon on his guitar and mic whilst we were having lunch, which I finished off with a delicious muscat and caramalised bread and butter pudding with cream custard.
The Tory tribute to the Three Stooges?
Strategically (and tactically) probably best NOT to shred reputation for fiscal (or any other) rectitude immediately prior to making it the slogan on the side Tory battle bus for impending GE?
Deliberate Tory policy to cosset the core vote. And amusing that PB Tories want more of it.
I've just been to the Council gym. The other thing is that there is no entrance barrier, anyone can just walk in and go straight in to the gym or pool. If you want to register your presence, you have to wait in a queue with the walk in members of the public. There is no enforcement of payment.
The real question is how to improve growth rates, which have languished since the GFC.
Trusses agenda of borrowing to fund tax cuts , with seemingly no care to demonstrate how it would in future balance the books, was just as bonkers as Brown in 2010.
What you just enjoyed sounds pretty similar. Great way for restaurants to use stale bread, win-win for them & diners.
UK Debt was 69% GDP when the Tories took over in 2010; it's 99% now. 13 years of restoring 'full balance and rectitude to the public finances' LOL.
What is the path you see for the UK?
The low unemployment rate, which is to be welcomed of course, is a factor of Britain’s flexible labour laws, and is seen worldwide in countries with a similar approach. That approach pre-dates the current government.
Not surprised re: the private alternative. I used to use a similar such facility, which was attached to a hotel in that case but functionally a separate business. It also had great facilities and enough kit that you were rarely left with the other people getting in the way problem, even when it was busy. Local authority places would doubtless be like that as well - if they were better funded.
Whether through tax or through direct subscription, one way or another, if you want anything decent then you have to pay for it.
I'd argue that this was a result of far-too-stringent lockdown policies. Which, of course, Kier Starmer wnted more of.
However, see the points I make about what *does* work, and add the additional distribution achieved in some European countries.
The average Western European is better off than the average Brit or even American, I think. The FT guy has done some good charts on comparative standards of living across the income distribution.
Just found out that a 2 bedroom bungalow in my area recently sold for £450K. Ridiculous.
Is that a different 'clear path' to the one set out in the June 2010 budget which promised that 'the structural current deficit will be eliminated by 2014-15'?
Just asking.
Just asking.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-19/uk-treasury-to-transfer-11-billion-to-boe-to-cover-qe-losses#:~:text=The UK Treasury is set,person familiar with the situation.
[£11bn]
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-pays-eu-2-3bn-after-losing-trade-dispute-12806928
[£2-3bn]
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sunak-macron-discuss-migration-ukraine-they-reset-ties-2023-03-09/
[£480 million]
The man is a liability.
They steadied the spiralling debt over the next decade
Then there was covid
Then Ukraine
What do you think the debt level would be now if SKS had been in charge post GFC, and during the interminable period that he wanted to extend covid restrictions?