Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
Disney just dug its heels. I mean, they basically said to the Southern Baptist Convention, “Fuck you, we don’t need you.” I don’t know whether the Disney guys were just arrogant or confident, but from the very beginning, they gave not an inch. Maybe it’s a profile in courage. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. I don’t know what was in their minds. I never got to talk to Katzenberg. I did speak briefly to Eisner at a book event, but he wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
The Baptists quickly learned that there was no real alternative in terms of popular culture for young children other than Disney. So, they were talking about sacrifice. And I think sacrifice is one thing if they’re asking adults to make it. Disney parks had by that time become a cultural imperative. Which is to say, if you wanted to be a good parent or a good grandparent, taking your children or grandchildren to one of the Disney parks became a cultural imperative. That’s one of the things—one of the boxes you had to tick. And they were a little bit queasy with trying to tell a 7-year-old that we’re not going to Disneyland or Disney World because we think they’re not as friendly to evangelicals as Walt was 30 years ago…
… I don’t think he realized that Disney punches back, and they may punch back better than he punches. He shouldn’t set himself up to stand or fall on whether he can get Disney to capitulate, because he will never get Disney to capitulate. It will not happen. It didn’t happen in the ’90s, and for sure it’s not going to happen now. And if you had to bet, would you bet on an ambitious Florida governor, or would you bet on a multibillion-dollar corporation that knows what its audience wants?
Hes taken it too far. Yes he can bash woke Disney but they have every incentive to drag it through the coursts and is he really looking tough even if he wins?
Disney know what makes them more money, they dont seen randomly activist like smaller companies.
Wouldn't it be better if both sides calmed down and moderated their positions, recognising that at some level the other might perhaps have a point?
Free speech innit?
And Disney had such a sweet deal on their district its probably worth a protracted legal fight about it.
Yes.
HOWEVER, am guessing the REAL motivation for Disney to NOT allow jack-leg preachers OR cheap-jack politicos to bully them over creative content, is realization that IF they give in to such tactics, it would be open season against them.
So if Ron DiRatis wants to fuck around with Mickey Mouse, then Disney will show him - and anyone else whose paying attention - the error of his ways.
One thing I think people are missing about this is that Disney is not in the greatest of position share price wise due to other factors (namely the losses they have made on the Disney+ streaming service) and so, having to fight on a second major front, namely with DeSantis, may make shareholders even more worried about what Disney is doing.
There is also the fact that Anheuser Busch is reporting its numbers this week and every analyst and investor is going to be asking about their Bud Light sales. The WSJ said Bud Light was down 15% YoY in sales for the week of April 15th and it is possible that has got worse. If that is the case, and AB starts rowing back on its comments, then the investor community is - very quickly - going to get tired of corporates pursuing political goals that potentially impact the share price.
Maybe. BUT personally would NOT bet on it.
For one thing, decline in Bud Light sales may have something to do with fact that it's diluted horse piss?
For another, will need to see what the figures show in a month, and in six months?
Note also that most consumer boycotts of this kind fizzle (apt word?) out.
ADDENDUM - BTW, issue re: Mickey versus DeRatis, is no longer Disney's opposition to "don't say gay" law. It is now political & governmental retaliation for daring to oppose the Governor and his rubber-stamp legislature.
Sales of beers like Miller Light have been increasing in the same period so it looks like it is a Bud Light specific thing. Certainly AB are worried enough where they have effectively fired both the Bud Light marketing director and her boss, and done a full 180 degree turn on their marketing claiming they are an All-American brand.
Will the sales come back? Who knows. I was at dinner last week with someone who had been travelling to the States on work and, while in a bar in Dallas, had heard a woman ask a guy "are you gay?" for ordering Bud Light. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness. It may change but sometimes these thing don't.
As for Disney, it has multiple issues at the moment. There is growing unease from investors that companies are stepping into minefields here and it is not going away.
Re: beer we'll have to see.
Re: Disney, allow me to point out yet again, thanks to RDS the issue has morphed from pushing back versus alleged Woke, to use of governmental authority and power to punish dissent from government policy and actions.
Plenty of Americans who actually agree with the Gov (and you?) on the first point, are opposed to him on the second.
It maybe that the issue has morphed back but that is not necessarily the point. Shareholders don't want corporates getting involved in political conflicts that can damage their businesses. They were willing to tolerate it to a point but not when it can cause complications.
It may be true that it has gone back to an issue about Govt authority over businesses but the original root cause was Disney deciding to weigh in on a Bill that was passed in the Florida legislature, which had nothing to do with its core business and where it weighed in because a vocal group of its employees pushed the company into taking a stance. Just as you argue RDS is using his power to punish dissent, it could be argued Disney was using its outsized influence in Florida to interfere in the state's politics.
Disney has a perfect right to comment on legislation proposed, pending and enacted into law. Especially when they think it affects them, their employees AND stockholders.
What YOU are calling interference, is what others call the rights of citizens AND businesses to disagree with government policies and actions. Something never done by companies in UK? Pretty common in USA.
True that, when the "original" issue of Disney lobbying publicly against "don't say gay" there was higher support for RDS position (according to polling) when it was framed in terms of curbing corporate power, rather than on need to combat the Woke menace.
HOWEVER, RDS's blatant and (he obviously thinks) self-serving efforts to use state power versus Disney, seriously undermine his own best argument.
My guess is that HIS effervescence, so to speak, is in more danger than Disney's. Or Budweiser's.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
The apparent 'decline' of Britain - ie in terms of how it looks - I would say, is to do with local authority budgets. There isn't enough money due to budget cuts so that discretionary services, ie landscaping, public toilets, fixing potholes, parks and gardens just get cut. Even things like enforcement of planning regulations gets cut right back to the point where, in one town of 100,000 people I am familiar with, has 2000 unresolved breaches of planning control that it knows about, and only two inexperienced officers (ie with less than one years experience) dealing with it. Much of this is all just trivial amounts of money that are not being spent with disproportionate consequences that are not immediately obvious. By contrast municipalities in other countries don't let things get so bad even when economic times are objectively far, far worse; because they aren't dealing with the legacy of thatcherism and the harm it did to central/local government relations.
The money is going on social care. In other words, very elderly people.
I don't want to seem callous but we really do need to have a conversation about how much of our national wealth we want to, publicly, spend very expensively on keeping people alive for as long as possible who aren't particularly well and aren't particularly enjoying it.
In other countries, families take them in and look after them - with some visitors/outside help occasionally. I'd argue that's more humane. The trouble is it's also more hassle.
Multi-generational households are fine for very rich people, where granny or grandad can have a self-contained annexe or a barn conversion next to the main house, and where said elder is in reasonable health. Expecting the average family, with Mum and Dad both working full time to make ends meet, noisy kids bouncing off the walls, and already living on top of one another in a rabbit hutch house, to accommodate any older relative - still less one with disabilities and/or dementia - is a complete non-starter. Retirement villages, sheltered housing and residential care homes all exist for good reasons.
The real issue isn't the expenditure of all that cash - not least because, if we make serious efforts to cut and ration it, then how are we going to decide which older people are worth cherishing, and who gets left to starve to death sitting in their own shit or humanely destroyed when they're past it like the family cat? It's who keeps getting taken to the cleaners over and over again for all the extra funding that's the real problem here.
Not really. My wife's family is from Bulgaria, which is a poor country, and everyone does it there, regardless of how little they have.
They consider what we do to be cruel. Like shunting off a 3-year to boarding school, just the other way round.
Granny has dementia and can't be left alone for her own safety. She comes to live with daughter and son-in-law and their two kiddies.
Which half of the couple sacrifices their career and becomes a full-time unpaid career for Granny for the remainder of her lifespan, and how does the other half earn enough money to cover the mortgage and all the bills for the entire household?
It is all pretty feasible: you can bring in carers, work from home etc.
Bollocks is it, my father has dementia, no way I can have him live with me and still work. Simple fact.....he has not filter and even though I work from home he would be constantly peering over my shoulder in every meeting going things like shes a fat cow, walking round in the background in his underpants etc. My choice would be give up work to look after him then how do I pay for food, rent , power etc or put him in a home if he gets much worse.
You make it sound an easy thing which makes me think you have never dealt with someone with dementia
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Well we will see if there is anything to this. However as a wealthy woman she is likely to have financial interests all over the place.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
Dementia care is a very serious business. Not for the faint hearted. And only viable in the earlier stages. Towards the end devoting your life to the person is not enough. You need more than one person and expert skills to care for someone with medium to advanced dementia.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
The apparent 'decline' of Britain - ie in terms of how it looks - I would say, is to do with local authority budgets. There isn't enough money due to budget cuts so that discretionary services, ie landscaping, public toilets, fixing potholes, parks and gardens just get cut. Even things like enforcement of planning regulations gets cut right back to the point where, in one town of 100,000 people I am familiar with, has 2000 unresolved breaches of planning control that it knows about, and only two inexperienced officers (ie with less than one years experience) dealing with it. Much of this is all just trivial amounts of money that are not being spent with disproportionate consequences that are not immediately obvious. By contrast municipalities in other countries don't let things get so bad even when economic times are objectively far, far worse; because they aren't dealing with the legacy of thatcherism and the harm it did to central/local government relations.
The money is going on social care. In other words, very elderly people.
I don't want to seem callous but we really do need to have a conversation about how much of our national wealth we want to, publicly, spend very expensively on keeping people alive for as long as possible who aren't particularly well and aren't particularly enjoying it.
In other countries, families take them in and look after them - with some visitors/outside help occasionally. I'd argue that's more humane. The trouble is it's also more hassle.
Multi-generational households are fine for very rich people, where granny or grandad can have a self-contained annexe or a barn conversion next to the main house, and where said elder is in reasonable health. Expecting the average family, with Mum and Dad both working full time to make ends meet, noisy kids bouncing off the walls, and already living on top of one another in a rabbit hutch house, to accommodate any older relative - still less one with disabilities and/or dementia - is a complete non-starter. Retirement villages, sheltered housing and residential care homes all exist for good reasons.
The real issue isn't the expenditure of all that cash - not least because, if we make serious efforts to cut and ration it, then how are we going to decide which older people are worth cherishing, and who gets left to starve to death sitting in their own shit or humanely destroyed when they're past it like the family cat? It's who keeps getting taken to the cleaners over and over again for all the extra funding that's the real problem here.
Not really. My wife's family is from Bulgaria, which is a poor country, and everyone does it there, regardless of how little they have.
They consider what we do to be cruel. Like shunting off a 3-year to boarding school, just the other way round.
Granny has dementia and can't be left alone for her own safety. She comes to live with daughter and son-in-law and their two kiddies.
Which half of the couple sacrifices their career and becomes a full-time unpaid career for Granny for the remainder of her lifespan, and how does the other half earn enough money to cover the mortgage and all the bills for the entire household?
It is all pretty feasible: you can bring in carers, work from home etc.
Bollocks is it, my father has dementia, no way I can have him live with me and still work. Simple fact.....he has not filter and even though I work from home he would be constantly peering over my shoulder in every meeting going things like shes a fat cow, walking round in the background in his underpants etc. My choice would be give up work to look after him then how do I pay for food, rent , power etc or put him in a home if he gets much worse.
You make it sound an easy thing which makes me think you have never dealt with someone with dementia
Ignore it.
WTF how the hell do you ignore it?
Ignore those who r winding you up
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
Just met some American friends who have returned from a trip to Britain, the first in a long while.
Apparently the country is now “notably shabby”, and “falling to bits”, and “beer prices now rival New York”.
I disagree with their assessment. Britain is less shabby than it's been for a long time, especially in London, with the Elizabeth Line, etc.
Round here, the roads are in shite order (pot holes like bomb craters!) footpaths and verges are overgrown and fly tipping is out of control. I drove down the A46 last week from my village to the M1 and was appalled at how the embankments were festooned with litter, packaging, takeaway cartons and bits of car. Chaz should just have a quiet knees up with his family and bung my local council some cash to pay for a clean up!
TFS, they need to start making litter louts and criminals wear orange suits and prowl the highways of the UK picking up litter as a punishment
I'd vote for any party that advocated the death penalty for fly tippers. I genuinely hate people who do that, and I don't like to hate anyone.
They are positively encouraged in Gloucestershire.
If you want to take rubbish to your local Council dump you have to make an appointment.
Was genuinely amazed when I found out this was required at the municipal tip in Edinburgh, when we were chucking stuff out before leaving the country.
Britain, a country where the local council employs a man to check that cars entering the tip have an appointment for doing so. Because that needs doing.
We started having to make appointments at the tip during the pandemic, to keep people apart, and the council clearly liked it so much they’ve kept it going, along with the man sitting there ticking off the registration numbers. To be fair, booking is quite easy and you then sail in and out of a fairly empty tip, compared to the scrum and sometimes queues of cars to get in that were a regular feature before.
But there must be a lot of stuff that used to come to the tip that is now going somewhere else….
Our local council has the second highest recycling rate in Scotland. Our local council has never required appointments to visit a recycling centre? Coincidence? Probably not.
Our tip bans vans or trailers. So the stuff gets flytipped.
The root is the landfill tax and recycling targets. Good aims, but causing flytipping instead.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
'SUPPORT for the royal family is at an “all time low”, Professor John Curtice has said.
The polling expert’s assessment comes just one week ahead of King Charles’s coronation, which hit the headlines on Sunday after a call was put out for millions to give a “great cry” of allegiance during the ceremony.
Speaking to GB News, Curtice said that the data was increasingly suggesting that younger generations were moving away from supporting the royals.
“Support for them is now at an all time low and frankly it declined during the Queen Elizabeth era,” Curtice said.'
Hmm. I don't think demands for a loyalty oath will help.
Wokery.
It's deeply fashionable now to be against Britain and any symbols of Britain on the basis that they represent "colonialism", "racism" and "slavery".
Of course, this sentiment will be funded, advocated and encouraged by our enemies in China and Russia; they are hoping that if we lose enough self-confidence we might bring it all down on top of us ourselves.
They might be right.
Russia, and Russian propaganda being well known for ‘wokery’. Strange universe you sometimes inhabit.
Actually he has a point. Russia is willing to fund any movement that looks like it can disrupt UK stability. That has certainly included Scottish independence in recent times, but also Brexit.
They are equal opportunity disrupters.
Indeed - but that was hardly the thrust of his post.
The point of my post was that Russia will fund and encourage any useful idiot who is looking to undermine unity and confidence in the British state.
They are agnostic as to who or why. And it has no bearing on the consistency of what they do back home themselves.
To be fair the british state is doing a great job in undermining confidence in itself. It doesnt need the russians help.
What we're seeing is how confused and unstable a polity becomes when it ceases to be the undisputed top dog. There are various reactions to that, both on the Left and the Right.
Russia, and China, sense that - and are egging it on.
Who exactly is top dog here? Britain? Surely you mean the US or perhaps the west in general?
Blaming Russia for the declining support for the Monarchy is no more plausible than blaming them for Brexit.
The West in general, Europe, the UK, the US and the Anglosphere.
Economically, all of those used to utterly dominate the world in every way. And that was about until 20 years ago.
That has changed, and will change further still. In tandem, confidence has been ebbing since the turn of the century, IMHO - early signs during the dotcom crash and politically during Iraq War II and has plummeted since the GFC.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
That accusation is a turnaround from PB Tories.
I thought that Braverman (and Sunak) were proof indeed that the Conservatives cannot be racist because both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have families from the Indian Sub-Continent, and yet you are accused that your criticism of Sunak's probity is based on a racial issue. I would have thought that the evidence you have presented speaks for itself.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
They voted for Truss. It’s an interesting question.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
'SUPPORT for the royal family is at an “all time low”, Professor John Curtice has said.
The polling expert’s assessment comes just one week ahead of King Charles’s coronation, which hit the headlines on Sunday after a call was put out for millions to give a “great cry” of allegiance during the ceremony.
Speaking to GB News, Curtice said that the data was increasingly suggesting that younger generations were moving away from supporting the royals.
“Support for them is now at an all time low and frankly it declined during the Queen Elizabeth era,” Curtice said.'
Hmm. I don't think demands for a loyalty oath will help.
Wokery.
It's deeply fashionable now to be against Britain and any symbols of Britain on the basis that they represent "colonialism", "racism" and "slavery".
Of course, this sentiment will be funded, advocated and encouraged by our enemies in China and Russia; they are hoping that if we lose enough self-confidence we might bring it all down on top of us ourselves.
They might be right.
Russia, and Russian propaganda being well known for ‘wokery’. Strange universe you sometimes inhabit.
Actually he has a point. Russia is willing to fund any movement that looks like it can disrupt UK stability. That has certainly included Scottish independence in recent times, but also Brexit.
They are equal opportunity disrupters.
Indeed - but that was hardly the thrust of his post.
The point of my post was that Russia will fund and encourage any useful idiot who is looking to undermine unity and confidence in the British state.
They are agnostic as to who or why. And it has no bearing on the consistency of what they do back home themselves.
To be fair the british state is doing a great job in undermining confidence in itself. It doesnt need the russians help.
What we're seeing is how confused and unstable a polity becomes when it ceases to be the undisputed top dog. There are various reactions to that, both on the Left and the Right.
Russia, and China, sense that - and are egging it on.
Who exactly is top dog here? Britain? Surely you mean the US or perhaps the west in general?
Blaming Russia for the declining support for the Monarchy is no more plausible than blaming them for Brexit.
The West in general, Europe, the UK, the US and the Anglosphere.
The confidence has been ebbing since the turn of the century, IMHO,
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It's probably a bad idea for the kid's welfare too.
But, I don't think we care about that in this country very much. We care far more about adult choices to be able to do whatever they want.
Disney just dug its heels. I mean, they basically said to the Southern Baptist Convention, “Fuck you, we don’t need you.” I don’t know whether the Disney guys were just arrogant or confident, but from the very beginning, they gave not an inch. Maybe it’s a profile in courage. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. I don’t know what was in their minds. I never got to talk to Katzenberg. I did speak briefly to Eisner at a book event, but he wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
The Baptists quickly learned that there was no real alternative in terms of popular culture for young children other than Disney. So, they were talking about sacrifice. And I think sacrifice is one thing if they’re asking adults to make it. Disney parks had by that time become a cultural imperative. Which is to say, if you wanted to be a good parent or a good grandparent, taking your children or grandchildren to one of the Disney parks became a cultural imperative. That’s one of the things—one of the boxes you had to tick. And they were a little bit queasy with trying to tell a 7-year-old that we’re not going to Disneyland or Disney World because we think they’re not as friendly to evangelicals as Walt was 30 years ago…
… I don’t think he realized that Disney punches back, and they may punch back better than he punches. He shouldn’t set himself up to stand or fall on whether he can get Disney to capitulate, because he will never get Disney to capitulate. It will not happen. It didn’t happen in the ’90s, and for sure it’s not going to happen now. And if you had to bet, would you bet on an ambitious Florida governor, or would you bet on a multibillion-dollar corporation that knows what its audience wants?
Hes taken it too far. Yes he can bash woke Disney but they have every incentive to drag it through the coursts and is he really looking tough even if he wins?
Disney know what makes them more money, they dont seen randomly activist like smaller companies.
Wouldn't it be better if both sides calmed down and moderated their positions, recognising that at some level the other might perhaps have a point?
Free speech innit?
And Disney had such a sweet deal on their district its probably worth a protracted legal fight about it.
Yes.
HOWEVER, am guessing the REAL motivation for Disney to NOT allow jack-leg preachers OR cheap-jack politicos to bully them over creative content, is realization that IF they give in to such tactics, it would be open season against them.
So if Ron DiRatis wants to fuck around with Mickey Mouse, then Disney will show him - and anyone else whose paying attention - the error of his ways.
One thing I think people are missing about this is that Disney is not in the greatest of position share price wise due to other factors (namely the losses they have made on the Disney+ streaming service) and so, having to fight on a second major front, namely with DeSantis, may make shareholders even more worried about what Disney is doing.
There is also the fact that Anheuser Busch is reporting its numbers this week and every analyst and investor is going to be asking about their Bud Light sales. The WSJ said Bud Light was down 15% YoY in sales for the week of April 15th and it is possible that has got worse. If that is the case, and AB starts rowing back on its comments, then the investor community is - very quickly - going to get tired of corporates pursuing political goals that potentially impact the share price.
Maybe. BUT personally would NOT bet on it.
For one thing, decline in Bud Light sales may have something to do with fact that it's diluted horse piss?
For another, will need to see what the figures show in a month, and in six months?
Note also that most consumer boycotts of this kind fizzle (apt word?) out.
But previously (one assumes) it was popular diluted horse piss.
I think they're rebranding as that. The ads will go "Drink Popular Diluted Horse Piss", with cheerleaders, a rearing stallion with visible large penis, and F-22's launching tactical nukes overhead. The tagline is "Because we're just that butch" as the nukes detonate. Boom.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It is also driven by the need for economic growth.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
He is with me. But, I can't be arsed posting leaflets and canvassing and getting a hard time in my free time.
'SUPPORT for the royal family is at an “all time low”, Professor John Curtice has said.
The polling expert’s assessment comes just one week ahead of King Charles’s coronation, which hit the headlines on Sunday after a call was put out for millions to give a “great cry” of allegiance during the ceremony.
Speaking to GB News, Curtice said that the data was increasingly suggesting that younger generations were moving away from supporting the royals.
“Support for them is now at an all time low and frankly it declined during the Queen Elizabeth era,” Curtice said.'
Hmm. I don't think demands for a loyalty oath will help.
Wokery.
It's deeply fashionable now to be against Britain and any symbols of Britain on the basis that they represent "colonialism", "racism" and "slavery".
Of course, this sentiment will be funded, advocated and encouraged by our enemies in China and Russia; they are hoping that if we lose enough self-confidence we might bring it all down on top of us ourselves.
They might be right.
Russia, and Russian propaganda being well known for ‘wokery’. Strange universe you sometimes inhabit.
Actually he has a point. Russia is willing to fund any movement that looks like it can disrupt UK stability. That has certainly included Scottish independence in recent times, but also Brexit.
They are equal opportunity disrupters.
Indeed - but that was hardly the thrust of his post.
The point of my post was that Russia will fund and encourage any useful idiot who is looking to undermine unity and confidence in the British state.
They are agnostic as to who or why. And it has no bearing on the consistency of what they do back home themselves.
To be fair the british state is doing a great job in undermining confidence in itself. It doesnt need the russians help.
What we're seeing is how confused and unstable a polity becomes when it ceases to be the undisputed top dog. There are various reactions to that, both on the Left and the Right.
Russia, and China, sense that - and are egging it on.
Who exactly is top dog here? Britain? Surely you mean the US or perhaps the west in general?
Blaming Russia for the declining support for the Monarchy is no more plausible than blaming them for Brexit.
The West in general, Europe, the UK, the US and the Anglosphere.
Economically, all of those used to utterly dominate the world in every way. And that was about until 20 years ago.
That has changed, and will change further still. In tandem, confidence has been ebbing since the turn of the century, IMHO - early signs during the dotcom crash and politically during Iraq War II and has plummeted since the GFC.
Declinism goes back way before the Millenium!
1950s - decline
1960s - managed declined
1970s - declining to manage
The Monarchy issue feels different though. I just think younger people are culturally detached from it.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
As a family we have experienced the pain of our parents suffering with dementia, especially my father in law who we took home from the North of Scotland on the sudden death of his wife, only to discover he was in a serious stare of dementia which had been concealed from us by his wife
We had a terrible time and it broke my wife's heart but after a couple of months he died in our home with his family beside him
For 2 years we could not talk about it as it was too painful
My son in laws mother died 12 months ago after 4 years in dementia care and his father is also in long term dementia care
It most cases dementia as has been said it not just forgetfulness but so much more as the mind and body deteriorates and the personality of the loved one is lost
Dementia care needs professional care, and not home care in most cases, and it is a huge issue that at present seems almost impossible to resolve
I'm afraid it's also a financial bottomless pit in many ways and it's money that is the issue. It requires specialist accommodation as well as specially-trained carers for a start. Even then, dementia as we understand it goes through a number of stages and early diagnosis is very important.'
It's also worth pointing out the weight on Council costs isn't just about the care of vulnerable older people but also children and younger adults who also need care. The costs (including inflation often of medicines) rise in excess of recorded inflationary measures such as CPI, RPI, RRIX or whatever. Care for younger adults can also go on for years.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
He is with me. But, I can't be arsed posting leaflets and canvassing and getting a hard time in my free time.
Why should I?
I'm quite surprised how sanguine CCHQ seem about the CDO.
The timing of their conference is just the weekend after the weekend where the shellacking will be unveiled.
The apparent 'decline' of Britain - ie in terms of how it looks - I would say, is to do with local authority budgets. There isn't enough money due to budget cuts so that discretionary services, ie landscaping, public toilets, fixing potholes, parks and gardens just get cut. Even things like enforcement of planning regulations gets cut right back to the point where, in one town of 100,000 people I am familiar with, has 2000 unresolved breaches of planning control that it knows about, and only two inexperienced officers (ie with less than one years experience) dealing with it. Much of this is all just trivial amounts of money that are not being spent with disproportionate consequences that are not immediately obvious. By contrast municipalities in other countries don't let things get so bad even when economic times are objectively far, far worse; because they aren't dealing with the legacy of thatcherism and the harm it did to central/local government relations.
The money is going on social care. In other words, very elderly people.
I don't want to seem callous but we really do need to have a conversation about how much of our national wealth we want to, publicly, spend very expensively on keeping people alive for as long as possible who aren't particularly well and aren't particularly enjoying it.
In other countries, families take them in and look after them - with some visitors/outside help occasionally. I'd argue that's more humane. The trouble is it's also more hassle.
Multi-generational households are fine for very rich people, where granny or grandad can have a self-contained annexe or a barn conversion next to the main house, and where said elder is in reasonable health. Expecting the average family, with Mum and Dad both working full time to make ends meet, noisy kids bouncing off the walls, and already living on top of one another in a rabbit hutch house, to accommodate any older relative - still less one with disabilities and/or dementia - is a complete non-starter. Retirement villages, sheltered housing and residential care homes all exist for good reasons.
The real issue isn't the expenditure of all that cash - not least because, if we make serious efforts to cut and ration it, then how are we going to decide which older people are worth cherishing, and who gets left to starve to death sitting in their own shit or humanely destroyed when they're past it like the family cat? It's who keeps getting taken to the cleaners over and over again for all the extra funding that's the real problem here.
Not really. My wife's family is from Bulgaria, which is a poor country, and everyone does it there, regardless of how little they have.
They consider what we do to be cruel. Like shunting off a 3-year to boarding school, just the other way round.
Granny has dementia and can't be left alone for her own safety. She comes to live with daughter and son-in-law and their two kiddies.
Which half of the couple sacrifices their career and becomes a full-time unpaid career for Granny for the remainder of her lifespan, and how does the other half earn enough money to cover the mortgage and all the bills for the entire household?
It is all pretty feasible: you can bring in carers, work from home etc.
Bollocks is it, my father has dementia, no way I can have him live with me and still work. Simple fact.....he has not filter and even though I work from home he would be constantly peering over my shoulder in every meeting going things like shes a fat cow, walking round in the background in his underpants etc. My choice would be give up work to look after him then how do I pay for food, rent , power etc or put him in a home if he gets much worse.
You make it sound an easy thing which makes me think you have never dealt with someone with dementia
Ignore it.
WTF how the hell do you ignore it?
Ignore those who r winding you up
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It is also driven by the need for economic growth.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
As a Neon Fascist Imperialist Enslaver Of The Oppressed, I don’t tend to look at people as “productive units”. More as humans. Crazy, I know….
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
As a family we have experienced the pain of our parents suffering with dementia, especially my father in law who we took home from the North of Scotland on the sudden death of his wife, only to discover he was in a serious stare of dementia which had been concealed from us by his wife
We had a terrible time and it broke my wife's heart but after a couple of months he died in our home with his family beside him
For 2 years we could not talk about it as it was too painful
My son in laws mother died 12 months ago after 4 years in dementia care and his father is also in long term dementia care
It most cases dementia as has been said it not just forgetfulness but so much more as the mind and body deteriorates and the personality of the loved one is lost
Dementia care needs professional care, and not home care in most cases, and it is a huge issue that at present seems almost impossible to resolve
I'm afraid it's also a financial bottomless pit in many ways and it's money that is the issue. It requires specialist accommodation as well as specially-trained carers for a start. Even then, dementia as we understand it goes through a number of stages and early diagnosis is very important.'
It's also worth pointing out the weight on Council costs isn't just about the care of vulnerable older people but also children and younger adults who also need care. The costs (including inflation often of medicines) rise in excess of recorded inflationary measures such as CPI, RPI, RRIX or whatever. Care for younger adults can also go on for years.
Try getting an early diagnosis though, we have been taking my father to doctors last 3 years, we finally got a diagnosis after 3 years of them telling him he was fine when everyone that knew him knew he wasn't right and was getting worse....why they refused to diagnose him I can only speculate but I suspect there is a gp funding issue at play somewhere in the mix where it costs the practise money
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
But there's losing and there's LOSING.
I'm not sure whether you understand exactly where you were headed under Liz Truss. An extinction level event?
I'll go further. Part of the problem with our current political situation is that Labour and Conservative members feel entitled to be wholly indulgent in realising their fantasies 'safe' in the knowledge that their position as one of the big two in British politics is assured indefinitely.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
This is not the first, second, third or fourth story of this nature. It's a very smoky non-fire, let's just say that.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
She's a billionaire, so why has she gone begging to the government
The apparent 'decline' of Britain - ie in terms of how it looks - I would say, is to do with local authority budgets. There isn't enough money due to budget cuts so that discretionary services, ie landscaping, public toilets, fixing potholes, parks and gardens just get cut. Even things like enforcement of planning regulations gets cut right back to the point where, in one town of 100,000 people I am familiar with, has 2000 unresolved breaches of planning control that it knows about, and only two inexperienced officers (ie with less than one years experience) dealing with it. Much of this is all just trivial amounts of money that are not being spent with disproportionate consequences that are not immediately obvious. By contrast municipalities in other countries don't let things get so bad even when economic times are objectively far, far worse; because they aren't dealing with the legacy of thatcherism and the harm it did to central/local government relations.
The money is going on social care. In other words, very elderly people.
I don't want to seem callous but we really do need to have a conversation about how much of our national wealth we want to, publicly, spend very expensively on keeping people alive for as long as possible who aren't particularly well and aren't particularly enjoying it.
In other countries, families take them in and look after them - with some visitors/outside help occasionally. I'd argue that's more humane. The trouble is it's also more hassle.
Multi-generational households are fine for very rich people, where granny or grandad can have a self-contained annexe or a barn conversion next to the main house, and where said elder is in reasonable health. Expecting the average family, with Mum and Dad both working full time to make ends meet, noisy kids bouncing off the walls, and already living on top of one another in a rabbit hutch house, to accommodate any older relative - still less one with disabilities and/or dementia - is a complete non-starter. Retirement villages, sheltered housing and residential care homes all exist for good reasons.
The real issue isn't the expenditure of all that cash - not least because, if we make serious efforts to cut and ration it, then how are we going to decide which older people are worth cherishing, and who gets left to starve to death sitting in their own shit or humanely destroyed when they're past it like the family cat? It's who keeps getting taken to the cleaners over and over again for all the extra funding that's the real problem here.
Not really. My wife's family is from Bulgaria, which is a poor country, and everyone does it there, regardless of how little they have.
They consider what we do to be cruel. Like shunting off a 3-year to boarding school, just the other way round.
Granny has dementia and can't be left alone for her own safety. She comes to live with daughter and son-in-law and their two kiddies.
Which half of the couple sacrifices their career and becomes a full-time unpaid career for Granny for the remainder of her lifespan, and how does the other half earn enough money to cover the mortgage and all the bills for the entire household?
It is all pretty feasible: you can bring in carers, work from home etc.
Bollocks is it, my father has dementia, no way I can have him live with me and still work. Simple fact.....he has not filter and even though I work from home he would be constantly peering over my shoulder in every meeting going things like shes a fat cow, walking round in the background in his underpants etc. My choice would be give up work to look after him then how do I pay for food, rent , power etc or put him in a home if he gets much worse.
You make it sound an easy thing which makes me think you have never dealt with someone with dementia
Ignore it.
WTF how the hell do you ignore it?
Ignore those who r winding you up
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
There are 3 of us sharing care for him currently and the worst bit for us I think is when he shows signs of illness we wonder if it wouldn't be kinder not to make him goto a doctor. We have got to that point where we think it would be kinder to let him slip away while he is still at least occasionally there.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
As a family we have experienced the pain of our parents suffering with dementia, especially my father in law who we took home from the North of Scotland on the sudden death of his wife, only to discover he was in a serious stare of dementia which had been concealed from us by his wife
We had a terrible time and it broke my wife's heart but after a couple of months he died in our home with his family beside him
For 2 years we could not talk about it as it was too painful
My son in laws mother died 12 months ago after 4 years in dementia care and his father is also in long term dementia care
It most cases dementia as has been said it not just forgetfulness but so much more as the mind and body deteriorates and the personality of the loved one is lost
Dementia care needs professional care, and not home care in most cases, and it is a huge issue that at present seems almost impossible to resolve
I'm afraid it's also a financial bottomless pit in many ways and it's money that is the issue. It requires specialist accommodation as well as specially-trained carers for a start. Even then, dementia as we understand it goes through a number of stages and early diagnosis is very important.'
It's also worth pointing out the weight on Council costs isn't just about the care of vulnerable older people but also children and younger adults who also need care. The costs (including inflation often of medicines) rise in excess of recorded inflationary measures such as CPI, RPI, RRIX or whatever. Care for younger adults can also go on for years.
My son in law has paid over £200,000 in dementia costs so far for his parents, and you make a good point about young children and others needing care
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
The apparent 'decline' of Britain - ie in terms of how it looks - I would say, is to do with local authority budgets. There isn't enough money due to budget cuts so that discretionary services, ie landscaping, public toilets, fixing potholes, parks and gardens just get cut. Even things like enforcement of planning regulations gets cut right back to the point where, in one town of 100,000 people I am familiar with, has 2000 unresolved breaches of planning control that it knows about, and only two inexperienced officers (ie with less than one years experience) dealing with it. Much of this is all just trivial amounts of money that are not being spent with disproportionate consequences that are not immediately obvious. By contrast municipalities in other countries don't let things get so bad even when economic times are objectively far, far worse; because they aren't dealing with the legacy of thatcherism and the harm it did to central/local government relations.
The money is going on social care. In other words, very elderly people.
I don't want to seem callous but we really do need to have a conversation about how much of our national wealth we want to, publicly, spend very expensively on keeping people alive for as long as possible who aren't particularly well and aren't particularly enjoying it.
In other countries, families take them in and look after them - with some visitors/outside help occasionally. I'd argue that's more humane. The trouble is it's also more hassle.
Multi-generational households are fine for very rich people, where granny or grandad can have a self-contained annexe or a barn conversion next to the main house, and where said elder is in reasonable health. Expecting the average family, with Mum and Dad both working full time to make ends meet, noisy kids bouncing off the walls, and already living on top of one another in a rabbit hutch house, to accommodate any older relative - still less one with disabilities and/or dementia - is a complete non-starter. Retirement villages, sheltered housing and residential care homes all exist for good reasons.
The real issue isn't the expenditure of all that cash - not least because, if we make serious efforts to cut and ration it, then how are we going to decide which older people are worth cherishing, and who gets left to starve to death sitting in their own shit or humanely destroyed when they're past it like the family cat? It's who keeps getting taken to the cleaners over and over again for all the extra funding that's the real problem here.
Not really. My wife's family is from Bulgaria, which is a poor country, and everyone does it there, regardless of how little they have.
They consider what we do to be cruel. Like shunting off a 3-year to boarding school, just the other way round.
Granny has dementia and can't be left alone for her own safety. She comes to live with daughter and son-in-law and their two kiddies.
Which half of the couple sacrifices their career and becomes a full-time unpaid career for Granny for the remainder of her lifespan, and how does the other half earn enough money to cover the mortgage and all the bills for the entire household?
It is all pretty feasible: you can bring in carers, work from home etc.
Bollocks is it, my father has dementia, no way I can have him live with me and still work. Simple fact.....he has not filter and even though I work from home he would be constantly peering over my shoulder in every meeting going things like shes a fat cow, walking round in the background in his underpants etc. My choice would be give up work to look after him then how do I pay for food, rent , power etc or put him in a home if he gets much worse.
You make it sound an easy thing which makes me think you have never dealt with someone with dementia
Ignore it.
WTF how the hell do you ignore it?
Ignore those who r winding you up
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
There are 3 of us sharing care for him currently and the worst bit for us I think is when he shows signs of illness we wonder if it wouldn't be kinder not to make him goto a doctor. We have got to that point where we think it would be kinder to let him slip away while he is still at least occasionally there.
My thoughts and understanding to you and your family as you experience the pain of dementia in your family
Disney just dug its heels. I mean, they basically said to the Southern Baptist Convention, “Fuck you, we don’t need you.” I don’t know whether the Disney guys were just arrogant or confident, but from the very beginning, they gave not an inch. Maybe it’s a profile in courage. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. I don’t know what was in their minds. I never got to talk to Katzenberg. I did speak briefly to Eisner at a book event, but he wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
The Baptists quickly learned that there was no real alternative in terms of popular culture for young children other than Disney. So, they were talking about sacrifice. And I think sacrifice is one thing if they’re asking adults to make it. Disney parks had by that time become a cultural imperative. Which is to say, if you wanted to be a good parent or a good grandparent, taking your children or grandchildren to one of the Disney parks became a cultural imperative. That’s one of the things—one of the boxes you had to tick. And they were a little bit queasy with trying to tell a 7-year-old that we’re not going to Disneyland or Disney World because we think they’re not as friendly to evangelicals as Walt was 30 years ago…
… I don’t think he realized that Disney punches back, and they may punch back better than he punches. He shouldn’t set himself up to stand or fall on whether he can get Disney to capitulate, because he will never get Disney to capitulate. It will not happen. It didn’t happen in the ’90s, and for sure it’s not going to happen now. And if you had to bet, would you bet on an ambitious Florida governor, or would you bet on a multibillion-dollar corporation that knows what its audience wants?
Hes taken it too far. Yes he can bash woke Disney but they have every incentive to drag it through the coursts and is he really looking tough even if he wins?
Disney know what makes them more money, they dont seen randomly activist like smaller companies.
Wouldn't it be better if both sides calmed down and moderated their positions, recognising that at some level the other might perhaps have a point?
Free speech innit?
And Disney had such a sweet deal on their district its probably worth a protracted legal fight about it.
Yes.
HOWEVER, am guessing the REAL motivation for Disney to NOT allow jack-leg preachers OR cheap-jack politicos to bully them over creative content, is realization that IF they give in to such tactics, it would be open season against them.
So if Ron DiRatis wants to fuck around with Mickey Mouse, then Disney will show him - and anyone else whose paying attention - the error of his ways.
One thing I think people are missing about this is that Disney is not in the greatest of position share price wise due to other factors (namely the losses they have made on the Disney+ streaming service) and so, having to fight on a second major front, namely with DeSantis, may make shareholders even more worried about what Disney is doing.
There is also the fact that Anheuser Busch is reporting its numbers this week and every analyst and investor is going to be asking about their Bud Light sales. The WSJ said Bud Light was down 15% YoY in sales for the week of April 15th and it is possible that has got worse. If that is the case, and AB starts rowing back on its comments, then the investor community is - very quickly - going to get tired of corporates pursuing political goals that potentially impact the share price.
Maybe. BUT personally would NOT bet on it.
For one thing, decline in Bud Light sales may have something to do with fact that it's diluted horse piss?
For another, will need to see what the figures show in a month, and in six months?
Note also that most consumer boycotts of this kind fizzle (apt word?) out.
ADDENDUM - BTW, issue re: Mickey versus DeRatis, is no longer Disney's opposition to "don't say gay" law. It is now political & governmental retaliation for daring to oppose the Governor and his rubber-stamp legislature.
Sales of beers like Miller Light have been increasing in the same period so it looks like it is a Bud Light specific thing. Certainly AB are worried enough where they have effectively fired both the Bud Light marketing director and her boss, and done a full 180 degree turn on their marketing claiming they are an All-American brand.
Will the sales come back? Who knows. I was at dinner last week with someone who had been travelling to the States on work and, while in a bar in Dallas, had heard a woman ask a guy "are you gay?" for ordering Bud Light. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness. It may change but sometimes these thing don't.
As for Disney, it has multiple issues at the moment. There is growing unease from investors that companies are stepping into minefields here and it is not going away.
Re: beer we'll have to see.
Re: Disney, allow me to point out yet again, thanks to RDS the issue has morphed from pushing back versus alleged Woke, to use of governmental authority and power to punish dissent from government policy and actions.
Plenty of Americans who actually agree with the Gov (and you?) on the first point, are opposed to him on the second.
It maybe that the issue has morphed back but that is not necessarily the point. Shareholders don't want corporates getting involved in political conflicts that can damage their businesses. They were willing to tolerate it to a point but not when it can cause complications.
It may be true that it has gone back to an issue about Govt authority over businesses but the original root cause was Disney deciding to weigh in on a Bill that was passed in the Florida legislature, which had nothing to do with its core business and where it weighed in because a vocal group of its employees pushed the company into taking a stance. Just as you argue RDS is using his power to punish dissent, it could be argued Disney was using its outsized influence in Florida to interfere in the state's politics.
Disney has a perfect right to comment on legislation proposed, pending and enacted into law. Especially when they think it affects them, their employees AND stockholders.
What YOU are calling interference, is what others call the rights of citizens AND businesses to disagree with government policies and actions. Something never done by companies in UK? Pretty common in USA.
True that, when the "original" issue of Disney lobbying publicly against "don't say gay" there was higher support for RDS position (according to polling) when it was framed in terms of curbing corporate power, rather than on need to combat the Woke menace.
HOWEVER, RDS's blatant and (he obviously thinks) self-serving efforts to use state power versus Disney, seriously undermine his own best argument.
My guess is that HIS effervescence, so to speak, is in more danger than Disney's. Or Budweiser's.
And, ditto, it might be argued that RDS has the right to comment on Disney's status in Florida. Disney has a special power which has is pretty much unique in the United States, acting as self-governing in its own territory.
It might also be argued that there is no reason why RDS should not revisit the issue if you believe the principle a legislature should not be bound by the decisions of its predecessors.
Also, FYI, you are actually not right that businesses have a right to disagree with government policies IF it conflicts with their primary duty which is to uphold shareholder interests, which takes precedence.
Personally, my view is (1) RDS shouldn't have pushed this and (2) Disney should have kept their mouths shut. Simple as that.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
This is not the first, second, third or fourth story of this nature. It's a very smoky non-fire, let's just say that.
Or rather, that a few wisps of smoke suggest that there is NOT a problem, given the high level of wealth enjoyed by the Sunaks?
Kinda like when John D. Rockefeller VII aka "Jay" showed up in West Virginia and started running for public office, ultimately Governor then US Senator.
"He's too rich to steal" was the refrain I heard more than once from my elders, as one of Jay's biggest selling points for WVa voters.
Am NOT saying that Rishi Sunak is as clean as the driven snow, given potential for conflicts of interests due to Mrs Sunak's family fortune. Just that instances so far cited, seem to come across as too picayune to cause significant political problems.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
We probably need to see a reasonable decline in the price to earnings ratio. Substantial investment and productivity growth in the economy seems unlikely without it. That's what happened in the early 90s, no?
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
The problem was she did and she crashed the markets
Sunak has a mountain to climb but at least he and Hunt have stabilised the markets and he has had successes not least the WF
All the indicators are Starmer will win in 24 but Sunak may at least have mitigated the loses
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
It’s not about collapsing a housing market.
The shortage of housing is getting to the point that people cannot live in large sections of the country. This is getting worse.
Even if we doubled house building, the rate of price increase would be higher than the currently high rate of inflation.
The entire holiday sector in Cornwall is 25k properties, out of 250k properties. But apparently building 25k more properties would end the world. Or something.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
Yes the fair price for the Johnson/Truss debacle is a thumping general election defeat. It does nobody any good for them to try and wriggle out of it.
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
Absolutely, and every sympathy for Pagan and his father. The only thing I'd say which may help some is that not every dementia case is as bad as that. My father had it for a number of years before he died, and it took the form of sometimes total forgetfulness. He couldn't go out alone for fear of not finding his way home. He would forget simple things - my job, where we were living etc. But it never took an aggressive or disruptive form; my mother and I looked after him and he said he'd never been happier. Don't despair if you get it.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
This is not the first, second, third or fourth story of this nature. It's a very smoky non-fire, let's just say that.
Or rather, that a few wisps of smoke suggest that there is NOT a problem, given the high level of wealth enjoyed by the Sunaks?
Kinda like when John D. Rockefeller VII aka "Jay" showed up in West Virginia and started running for public office, ultimately Governor then US Senator.
"He's too rich to steal" was the refrain I heard more than once from my elders, as one of Jay's biggest selling points for WVa voters.
Am NOT saying that Rishi Sunak is as clean as the driven snow, given potential for conflicts of interests due to Mrs Sunak's family fortune. Just that instances so far cited, seem to come across as too picayune to cause significant political problems.
I used to think that Sunak's wealth was a net benefit for exactly the reason you give. I no longer believe that, because whatever the family's financial arrangements (perhaps Sunak doesn’t have access to his wife's assets), it appears to me that acquiring wealth is still a big motivating factor for him. Perhaps its the difference in midset between marrying the money and being the money.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
Just met some American friends who have returned from a trip to Britain, the first in a long while.
Apparently the country is now “notably shabby”, and “falling to bits”, and “beer prices now rival New York”.
I disagree with their assessment. Britain is less shabby than it's been for a long time, especially in London, with the Elizabeth Line, etc.
Round here, the roads are in shite order (pot holes like bomb craters!) footpaths and verges are overgrown and fly tipping is out of control. I drove down the A46 last week from my village to the M1 and was appalled at how the embankments were festooned with litter, packaging, takeaway cartons and bits of car. Chaz should just have a quiet knees up with his family and bung my local council some cash to pay for a clean up!
TFS, they need to start making litter louts and criminals wear orange suits and prowl the highways of the UK picking up litter as a punishment
I'd vote for any party that advocated the death penalty for fly tippers. I genuinely hate people who do that, and I don't like to hate anyone.
They are positively encouraged in Gloucestershire.
If you want to take rubbish to your local Council dump you have to make an appointment.
Was genuinely amazed when I found out this was required at the municipal tip in Edinburgh, when we were chucking stuff out before leaving the country.
Britain, a country where the local council employs a man to check that cars entering the tip have an appointment for doing so. Because that needs doing.
We started having to make appointments at the tip during the pandemic, to keep people apart, and the council clearly liked it so much they’ve kept it going, along with the man sitting there ticking off the registration numbers. To be fair, booking is quite easy and you then sail in and out of a fairly empty tip, compared to the scrum and sometimes queues of cars to get in that were a regular feature before.
But there must be a lot of stuff that used to come to the tip that is now going somewhere else….
The general rule is that if something started during the pandemic it's usually something that's made life more difficult for ordinary people and easier for the authorities.
Just met some American friends who have returned from a trip to Britain, the first in a long while.
Apparently the country is now “notably shabby”, and “falling to bits”, and “beer prices now rival New York”.
I disagree with their assessment. Britain is less shabby than it's been for a long time, especially in London, with the Elizabeth Line, etc.
Round here, the roads are in shite order (pot holes like bomb craters!) footpaths and verges are overgrown and fly tipping is out of control. I drove down the A46 last week from my village to the M1 and was appalled at how the embankments were festooned with litter, packaging, takeaway cartons and bits of car. Chaz should just have a quiet knees up with his family and bung my local council some cash to pay for a clean up!
TFS, they need to start making litter louts and criminals wear orange suits and prowl the highways of the UK picking up litter as a punishment
I'd vote for any party that advocated the death penalty for fly tippers. I genuinely hate people who do that, and I don't like to hate anyone.
They are positively encouraged in Gloucestershire.
If you want to take rubbish to your local Council dump you have to make an appointment.
Was genuinely amazed when I found out this was required at the municipal tip in Edinburgh, when we were chucking stuff out before leaving the country.
Britain, a country where the local council employs a man to check that cars entering the tip have an appointment for doing so. Because that needs doing.
We started having to make appointments at the tip during the pandemic, to keep people apart, and the council clearly liked it so much they’ve kept it going, along with the man sitting there ticking off the registration numbers. To be fair, booking is quite easy and you then sail in and out of a fairly empty tip, compared to the scrum and sometimes queues of cars to get in that were a regular feature before.
But there must be a lot of stuff that used to come to the tip that is now going somewhere else….
The general rule is that if something started during the pandemic it's usually something that's made life more difficult for ordinary people and easier for the authorities.
Just met some American friends who have returned from a trip to Britain, the first in a long while.
Apparently the country is now “notably shabby”, and “falling to bits”, and “beer prices now rival New York”.
I disagree with their assessment. Britain is less shabby than it's been for a long time, especially in London, with the Elizabeth Line, etc.
Round here, the roads are in shite order (pot holes like bomb craters!) footpaths and verges are overgrown and fly tipping is out of control. I drove down the A46 last week from my village to the M1 and was appalled at how the embankments were festooned with litter, packaging, takeaway cartons and bits of car. Chaz should just have a quiet knees up with his family and bung my local council some cash to pay for a clean up!
TFS, they need to start making litter louts and criminals wear orange suits and prowl the highways of the UK picking up litter as a punishment
I'd vote for any party that advocated the death penalty for fly tippers. I genuinely hate people who do that, and I don't like to hate anyone.
They are positively encouraged in Gloucestershire.
If you want to take rubbish to your local Council dump you have to make an appointment.
Was genuinely amazed when I found out this was required at the municipal tip in Edinburgh, when we were chucking stuff out before leaving the country.
Britain, a country where the local council employs a man to check that cars entering the tip have an appointment for doing so. Because that needs doing.
We started having to make appointments at the tip during the pandemic, to keep people apart, and the council clearly liked it so much they’ve kept it going, along with the man sitting there ticking off the registration numbers. To be fair, booking is quite easy and you then sail in and out of a fairly empty tip, compared to the scrum and sometimes queues of cars to get in that were a regular feature before.
But there must be a lot of stuff that used to come to the tip that is now going somewhere else….
The general rule is that if something started during the pandemic it's usually something that's made life more difficult for ordinary people and easier for the authorities.
The local council (very Labour) adores the appointment system. Everything (including recycling) is an appointment booked online.
The fact that most of the booking systems are broken is not important, since there are no phone lines answered. So no complaints can be lodged. So all good.
John Curtice just on Radio 4 with some interesting stuff to say re Locals. Firstly. Seats gained/lost is a terrible measure. Due to radically differing ward sizes. One gain in a Metro ward can be worth ten rural. Secondly. Tory claims of 1k losses comes from a Thrasher and Rawlings projection many, many weeks ago when the polls were much, much worse. Thirdly. Labour looking for 400 gains is an arbitrary figure representing being the largest Party of local government. It is symbolic rather than significant. Finally. The metric to use is. Are Labour 10% ahead on NEV or not? If they are they are nailed on heading for government. Thus have I heard.
BBC says support for the monarchy amongst young people has dropped from 64% in 2016 to 32% today.
Cohort effect and arguably bad reporting. The people who were in the category of "young people" in 2016 are not necessarily in that category now. The people who were in the category of "young people" today were in the "child" category in 2016. They aren't the same people.
Here in Seattle, we're feeling rather bummed this Sunday. Because Saturday was absolutely spectacular, weather-wise. With clear skies AND temperatures pushing 80F.
This week we hit 70F for the first time since October 2022. Spring has barely sprung, and has in fact been running weeks late.
For example, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which officially began April 1, has barely gotten under way . . . because the tulips have just begun to bloom.
Yet things ARE bursting into flower all around us. On my own humble porch, the big leafy bush is again in flower, with long stems with clusters of white blossoms that smell like lemons, at least for maybe two weeks. PLUS the small tree in the small rectangle between me and the back of the neighboring taco shack is also in leaf and flower, with purple cones of blossoms.
Walking about in my 'hood, off of the main drag anyway, is like strolling in a garden. And even more so now than usual.
BTW (also FYI) spent much of Friday in Anacortes about 60 miles north of Seattle, on Fidalgo Island. Big (actually small) local resort town, with lots of coffee bars, restaurants, boutiques, etc., etc. filled mostly that day with older tourists. Though just a few blocks away, a shipyard where a Washington State Ferries boat was being repaired, also extensive waterfront. AND a great used bookstore.
Not a bad way to spend a few hours on a sunny Spring day.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
We probably need to see a reasonable decline in the price to earnings ratio. Substantial investment and productivity growth in the economy seems unlikely without it. That's what happened in the early 90s, no?
Significant - non-imported - inflation is the key.
Essentially an inflationary spiral, where hgh prices beget high wage settlements beget high prices.
Under that scenario, the government has no choice but to raise interest rates and to keep them high until inflation has well and truly gone.
That's what happened in the early 1990s. Inflation. High interest rates. And property prices, in real terms, fell 40%.
But boy was it painful. Millions were cast into negative equity. Repossessions soared. And we had one of the biggest recessions of the last half century.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It is also driven by the need for economic growth.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
Point to think about. If women left the labour force to look after their kids the housing crisis would be solved. No more 2 income mortgages and house prices would crash. Not only that but without childcare costs families would need less money anyway. A win win.
Let me know where that's been a success in the real world, would you?
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
The problem was she did and she crashed the markets
Sunak has a mountain to climb but at least he and Hunt have stabilised the markets and he has had successes not least the WF
All the indicators are Starmer will win in 24 but Sunak may at least have mitigated the loses
It's like any other bet- what do you hope to win, what can you afford to lose?
After the fall of Johnson (who was something of a gamble in 2019), the Conservatives could have gone direct to Sunak as a "cut the losses" candidate. I doubt that Sunak could have won a general election even then, but a narrow loss was gettable.
The party decided to gamble on Truss, and lost that gamble pretty quickly. It was pretty likely to end badly. And whilst Sunak can repair some of the damage, "cut the losses" applies even more now.
When to cut your losses isn't just about risk and reward; it's also about your tolerance for losing everything.
Just met some American friends who have returned from a trip to Britain, the first in a long while.
Apparently the country is now “notably shabby”, and “falling to bits”, and “beer prices now rival New York”.
I disagree with their assessment. Britain is less shabby than it's been for a long time, especially in London, with the Elizabeth Line, etc.
Round here, the roads are in shite order (pot holes like bomb craters!) footpaths and verges are overgrown and fly tipping is out of control. I drove down the A46 last week from my village to the M1 and was appalled at how the embankments were festooned with litter, packaging, takeaway cartons and bits of car. Chaz should just have a quiet knees up with his family and bung my local council some cash to pay for a clean up!
TFS, they need to start making litter louts and criminals wear orange suits and prowl the highways of the UK picking up litter as a punishment
I'd vote for any party that advocated the death penalty for fly tippers. I genuinely hate people who do that, and I don't like to hate anyone.
They are positively encouraged in Gloucestershire.
If you want to take rubbish to your local Council dump you have to make an appointment.
Was genuinely amazed when I found out this was required at the municipal tip in Edinburgh, when we were chucking stuff out before leaving the country.
Britain, a country where the local council employs a man to check that cars entering the tip have an appointment for doing so. Because that needs doing.
We started having to make appointments at the tip during the pandemic, to keep people apart, and the council clearly liked it so much they’ve kept it going, along with the man sitting there ticking off the registration numbers. To be fair, booking is quite easy and you then sail in and out of a fairly empty tip, compared to the scrum and sometimes queues of cars to get in that were a regular feature before.
But there must be a lot of stuff that used to come to the tip that is now going somewhere else….
The general rule is that if something started during the pandemic it's usually something that's made life more difficult for ordinary people and easier for the authorities.
The local council (very Labour) adores the appointment system. Everything (including recycling) is an appointment booked online.
The fact that most of the booking systems are broken is not important, since there are no phone lines answered. So no complaints can be lodged. So all good.
My local council (very Tory) doesn't do appointments Online. Or answering emails. Your alternative is travelling up to 50 miles on rural roads. So be grateful for your lot.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It is also driven by the need for economic growth.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
Point to think about. If women left the labour force to look after their kids the housing crisis would be solved. No more 2 income mortgages and house prices would crash. Not only that but without childcare costs families would need less money anyway. A win win.
As an aside, if you plot female labour force participation vs happiness indexes, there's a (very) statistically significant positive correlation.
Countries where women work are typically much, much happier than those where they do not.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
This is a nonsensical conversation. Anyone who stays at home all day to raise a child works a damn sight harder than those on six figure salaries who are on PB all day. I know. I've done it.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
Because it was unpopular doesn't mean it wasnt the correct thing to do, and by reversing the decline which was a popular thing to do in 97 is surely the definition of populism
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
I think it's divide and rule. The State is gorging itself on taxpayers' money - that is where the dissatisfaction should be directed, not at one group who seems to be doing a bit less poorly out of it than the rest.
I would just say that those attacking the triple lock need to realise it was Starmer who mounted a campaign to retain it, and both Starmer and Reeves have affirmed they will do so if they win office
I would also comment I have never approved of NI contributions stopping at 60, and everyone in employment no matter their age should pay NI
The government has a majority of 70 or so, they could have abolished/modified the triple lock.
You cannot pin this on Starmer.
Indeed I can as he and Reeves have stated it is not up for discussion and they are likely to be in power in 18 months time
Unspoofable.
Repeat after me, the government have a notional majority of 70 or so and can abolish and/or amend the triple lock tomorrow.
They choose not to.
Wait until you hear the other stuff the government does that Starmer opposes.
I was with my 76 year old Conservative supporting neighbour yesterday and he has a compelling case that the small boats problem is Labour's fault as they want the boat people over here because when they achieve their citizenship they vote Labour.
With experience comes wisdom.
Tell him SKS Labour has a hierarchy of racism similar to his
Now, just imagine the reaction if you'd expressed concern about bringing people into the country wearing yarmulkas ...
It's baseball caps that I'd like to see outlawed.
A baseball cap is an amazing thing. When someone wears one it sucks the intelligence out of their brain.
I don't think I have ever worn one. Probably just as well, all things considered.
They are quite useful for actual sports. For example, I use one to keep rain off my glasses when rowing.
If you can find one which fits your headshape (far from a given with my massive head) they do a decent job of keeping summer sun off a scalp not as shielded by hair as it once was, and in my case look less preposterous in doing so than most other hats.
Tilley hats do the trick. Not as Croc Dundee as some.
Very popular in Seattle AND also ugliest hats ever.
Personally would rather wear an old bucket on my fool head.
Some of us don't have any choice. Too fair and too sensitive to the sun.
What’s wrong with a panama ?
Not broad enough.
I habitually wear a hat - winter, spring, summer and fall.
No need to wear a Tilley UNLESS you want to, as there are PLENTY of (broad-brimmed) alternatives.
Personally find Panama and similar hat with solid crowns TOO HOT to wear in warm to hot weather.
Instead, my preference is for hats with mesh and/or air holes, such as are popular in Australia, for example Barmah and B.C. Hats both Oz brands.
Right now am wearing my new favorite, made by (ironically?) Panama Jack; mesh crown (on sides), broad brim (3''), VERY lightweight.
AND stylish. Especially as I've decorated/personalized it with some of great lapel pins attached to the mesh.
Rogue hats from South Africa also do a range of ventilated crown hats.
I have their Kalahari hat, which packs really well, there probably is a USA importer.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
Yes, but New Labour went on to instigate the biggest housing bubble we've ever seen, and then did everything possible to prop it up when it burst because they didn't want the same thing to happen to them. Then Cameron and Osborne gave us more of the same.
The infection point between government in the national interest and short-termist populism was 1997.
Disney just dug its heels. I mean, they basically said to the Southern Baptist Convention, “Fuck you, we don’t need you.” I don’t know whether the Disney guys were just arrogant or confident, but from the very beginning, they gave not an inch. Maybe it’s a profile in courage. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. I don’t know what was in their minds. I never got to talk to Katzenberg. I did speak briefly to Eisner at a book event, but he wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
The Baptists quickly learned that there was no real alternative in terms of popular culture for young children other than Disney. So, they were talking about sacrifice. And I think sacrifice is one thing if they’re asking adults to make it. Disney parks had by that time become a cultural imperative. Which is to say, if you wanted to be a good parent or a good grandparent, taking your children or grandchildren to one of the Disney parks became a cultural imperative. That’s one of the things—one of the boxes you had to tick. And they were a little bit queasy with trying to tell a 7-year-old that we’re not going to Disneyland or Disney World because we think they’re not as friendly to evangelicals as Walt was 30 years ago…
… I don’t think he realized that Disney punches back, and they may punch back better than he punches. He shouldn’t set himself up to stand or fall on whether he can get Disney to capitulate, because he will never get Disney to capitulate. It will not happen. It didn’t happen in the ’90s, and for sure it’s not going to happen now. And if you had to bet, would you bet on an ambitious Florida governor, or would you bet on a multibillion-dollar corporation that knows what its audience wants?
Hes taken it too far. Yes he can bash woke Disney but they have every incentive to drag it through the coursts and is he really looking tough even if he wins?
Disney know what makes them more money, they dont seen randomly activist like smaller companies.
Wouldn't it be better if both sides calmed down and moderated their positions, recognising that at some level the other might perhaps have a point?
Free speech innit?
And Disney had such a sweet deal on their district its probably worth a protracted legal fight about it.
Yes.
HOWEVER, am guessing the REAL motivation for Disney to NOT allow jack-leg preachers OR cheap-jack politicos to bully them over creative content, is realization that IF they give in to such tactics, it would be open season against them.
So if Ron DiRatis wants to fuck around with Mickey Mouse, then Disney will show him - and anyone else whose paying attention - the error of his ways.
One thing I think people are missing about this is that Disney is not in the greatest of position share price wise due to other factors (namely the losses they have made on the Disney+ streaming service) and so, having to fight on a second major front, namely with DeSantis, may make shareholders even more worried about what Disney is doing.
There is also the fact that Anheuser Busch is reporting its numbers this week and every analyst and investor is going to be asking about their Bud Light sales. The WSJ said Bud Light was down 15% YoY in sales for the week of April 15th and it is possible that has got worse. If that is the case, and AB starts rowing back on its comments, then the investor community is - very quickly - going to get tired of corporates pursuing political goals that potentially impact the share price.
Maybe. BUT personally would NOT bet on it.
For one thing, decline in Bud Light sales may have something to do with fact that it's diluted horse piss?
For another, will need to see what the figures show in a month, and in six months?
Note also that most consumer boycotts of this kind fizzle (apt word?) out.
ADDENDUM - BTW, issue re: Mickey versus DeRatis, is no longer Disney's opposition to "don't say gay" law. It is now political & governmental retaliation for daring to oppose the Governor and his rubber-stamp legislature.
Sales of beers like Miller Light have been increasing in the same period so it looks like it is a Bud Light specific thing. Certainly AB are worried enough where they have effectively fired both the Bud Light marketing director and her boss, and done a full 180 degree turn on their marketing claiming they are an All-American brand.
Will the sales come back? Who knows. I was at dinner last week with someone who had been travelling to the States on work and, while in a bar in Dallas, had heard a woman ask a guy "are you gay?" for ordering Bud Light. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness. It may change but sometimes these thing don't.
As for Disney, it has multiple issues at the moment. There is growing unease from investors that companies are stepping into minefields here and it is not going away.
Re: beer we'll have to see.
Re: Disney, allow me to point out yet again, thanks to RDS the issue has morphed from pushing back versus alleged Woke, to use of governmental authority and power to punish dissent from government policy and actions.
Plenty of Americans who actually agree with the Gov (and you?) on the first point, are opposed to him on the second.
It maybe that the issue has morphed back but that is not necessarily the point. Shareholders don't want corporates getting involved in political conflicts that can damage their businesses. They were willing to tolerate it to a point but not when it can cause complications.
It may be true that it has gone back to an issue about Govt authority over businesses but the original root cause was Disney deciding to weigh in on a Bill that was passed in the Florida legislature, which had nothing to do with its core business and where it weighed in because a vocal group of its employees pushed the company into taking a stance. Just as you argue RDS is using his power to punish dissent, it could be argued Disney was using its outsized influence in Florida to interfere in the state's politics.
Disney has a perfect right to comment on legislation proposed, pending and enacted into law. Especially when they think it affects them, their employees AND stockholders.
What YOU are calling interference, is what others call the rights of citizens AND businesses to disagree with government policies and actions. Something never done by companies in UK? Pretty common in USA.
True that, when the "original" issue of Disney lobbying publicly against "don't say gay" there was higher support for RDS position (according to polling) when it was framed in terms of curbing corporate power, rather than on need to combat the Woke menace.
HOWEVER, RDS's blatant and (he obviously thinks) self-serving efforts to use state power versus Disney, seriously undermine his own best argument.
My guess is that HIS effervescence, so to speak, is in more danger than Disney's. Or Budweiser's.
And, ditto, it might be argued that RDS has the right to comment on Disney's status in Florida. Disney has a special power which has is pretty much unique in the United States, acting as self-governing in its own territory.
It might also be argued that there is no reason why RDS should not revisit the issue if you believe the principle a legislature should not be bound by the decisions of its predecessors.
Also, FYI, you are actually not right that businesses have a right to disagree with government policies IF it conflicts with their primary duty which is to uphold shareholder interests, which takes precedence.
Personally, my view is (1) RDS shouldn't have pushed this and (2) Disney should have kept their mouths shut. Simple as that.
Question (one anyway) re your "IF" is WHO decides that paramount duty to shareholders has in fact been violated? Answering that it's shareholders mostly, and maybe judge occasionally, makes sense. But making the governor and legislature the judge AND jury? Sounds like a crock to me, ditto most Americans I'll (figuratively) wager.
As to "principle" one you cite is no-brainer, at least to me, but also beside the point. Which to me, is that it's rich (or risible in UK-speak) to talk about "principle" here, when clear motivation for DeSantis is to further his 2024 nomination prospects, by ripping out the beating heart of Mickey Mouse and feeding it to GOP primary voters.
My own view is that, while it made some sense for RDS to go after Disney RHETORICALLY, it made little sense when he started - and less now - to take serious ACTION against the Mouse That Roared.
IF he'd stuck to just shooting off his mouth, and forgone turning himself into a Huey Long - or Viktor Orban - impersonator, Ron DeSantis would be in FAR better shape politically today.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
Because it was unpopular doesn't mean it wasnt the correct thing to do, and by reversing the decline which was a popular thing to do in 97 is surely the definition of populism
Yes. And yes. My point was about cause and effect.
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
Absolutely, and every sympathy for Pagan and his father. The only thing I'd say which may help some is that not every dementia case is as bad as that. My father had it for a number of years before he died, and it took the form of sometimes total forgetfulness. He couldn't go out alone for fear of not finding his way home. He would forget simple things - my job, where we were living etc. But it never took an aggressive or disruptive form; my mother and I looked after him and he said he'd never been happier. Don't despair if you get it.
My mum has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's 87. We're hoping it will be manageable at home - but my dad is 89 so that might not be possible for very long. Let's see though. Probably best to keep the planning short term and not look too far ahead.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I suspect she has lots of small investments but doesn’t manage the companies or get involved. If they applied through the normal route (and Innovate UK is pretty easy) then why shouldn’t they just because she has some shares
His own screw up with his own register of interests is a pretty big tell for me.
The prime minister was criticised in March for failing to declare his wife’s shares in a childcare agency called Koru Kids that could benefit from policy announced in the budget. Parliament’s standards watchdog is investigating to see if Sunak failed to be “open and frank” when declaring an interest. The prime minister later amended the register of ministerial interests to declare the shares.
His entry states that his wife “owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd” but there is no mention of Study Hall.
MPs love to act like registering their interests is just far too complicated for them to understand, leading to inadvertent errors. They also claim to be smart and competent enough to run the country.
Its really not hard. When in doubt declare, and if youre an MP and particularly a minister you should by default start with some doubts.
Labour Black Socialists @labourblacksoc1 · 4h LBS calls on the Labour Party to: · Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip. · Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
Because it was unpopular doesn't mean it wasnt the correct thing to do, and by reversing the decline which was a popular thing to do in 97 is surely the definition of populism
In 1995 you could pick up a nice flat in london for 60 grand.
In 1995/6 I went to see a flat in the actual City of London for £35k. It was absolutely tiny and a bit decrepit. We had £9k saved as a deposit. F**k it get smashed in Asia for a year instead. Karma. I'm grateful I'm still working. Wouldn't have it any other way.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
The problem was she did and she crashed the markets
Sunak has a mountain to climb but at least he and Hunt have stabilised the markets and he has had successes not least the WF
All the indicators are Starmer will win in 24 but Sunak may at least have mitigated the loses
Maybe, but the stage was set for 'we would have won if we'd stuck with Boris' the second he was gone. We can put good money the Tories reach for a comforting answer when they lose
Disney just dug its heels. I mean, they basically said to the Southern Baptist Convention, “Fuck you, we don’t need you.” I don’t know whether the Disney guys were just arrogant or confident, but from the very beginning, they gave not an inch. Maybe it’s a profile in courage. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. I don’t know what was in their minds. I never got to talk to Katzenberg. I did speak briefly to Eisner at a book event, but he wouldn’t tell me anything anyway.
The Baptists quickly learned that there was no real alternative in terms of popular culture for young children other than Disney. So, they were talking about sacrifice. And I think sacrifice is one thing if they’re asking adults to make it. Disney parks had by that time become a cultural imperative. Which is to say, if you wanted to be a good parent or a good grandparent, taking your children or grandchildren to one of the Disney parks became a cultural imperative. That’s one of the things—one of the boxes you had to tick. And they were a little bit queasy with trying to tell a 7-year-old that we’re not going to Disneyland or Disney World because we think they’re not as friendly to evangelicals as Walt was 30 years ago…
… I don’t think he realized that Disney punches back, and they may punch back better than he punches. He shouldn’t set himself up to stand or fall on whether he can get Disney to capitulate, because he will never get Disney to capitulate. It will not happen. It didn’t happen in the ’90s, and for sure it’s not going to happen now. And if you had to bet, would you bet on an ambitious Florida governor, or would you bet on a multibillion-dollar corporation that knows what its audience wants?
Hes taken it too far. Yes he can bash woke Disney but they have every incentive to drag it through the coursts and is he really looking tough even if he wins?
Disney know what makes them more money, they dont seen randomly activist like smaller companies.
Wouldn't it be better if both sides calmed down and moderated their positions, recognising that at some level the other might perhaps have a point?
Free speech innit?
And Disney had such a sweet deal on their district its probably worth a protracted legal fight about it.
Yes.
HOWEVER, am guessing the REAL motivation for Disney to NOT allow jack-leg preachers OR cheap-jack politicos to bully them over creative content, is realization that IF they give in to such tactics, it would be open season against them.
So if Ron DiRatis wants to fuck around with Mickey Mouse, then Disney will show him - and anyone else whose paying attention - the error of his ways.
One thing I think people are missing about this is that Disney is not in the greatest of position share price wise due to other factors (namely the losses they have made on the Disney+ streaming service) and so, having to fight on a second major front, namely with DeSantis, may make shareholders even more worried about what Disney is doing.
There is also the fact that Anheuser Busch is reporting its numbers this week and every analyst and investor is going to be asking about their Bud Light sales. The WSJ said Bud Light was down 15% YoY in sales for the week of April 15th and it is possible that has got worse. If that is the case, and AB starts rowing back on its comments, then the investor community is - very quickly - going to get tired of corporates pursuing political goals that potentially impact the share price.
Maybe. BUT personally would NOT bet on it.
For one thing, decline in Bud Light sales may have something to do with fact that it's diluted horse piss?
For another, will need to see what the figures show in a month, and in six months?
Note also that most consumer boycotts of this kind fizzle (apt word?) out.
ADDENDUM - BTW, issue re: Mickey versus DeRatis, is no longer Disney's opposition to "don't say gay" law. It is now political & governmental retaliation for daring to oppose the Governor and his rubber-stamp legislature.
Sales of beers like Miller Light have been increasing in the same period so it looks like it is a Bud Light specific thing. Certainly AB are worried enough where they have effectively fired both the Bud Light marketing director and her boss, and done a full 180 degree turn on their marketing claiming they are an All-American brand.
Will the sales come back? Who knows. I was at dinner last week with someone who had been travelling to the States on work and, while in a bar in Dallas, had heard a woman ask a guy "are you gay?" for ordering Bud Light. It seems to have seeped into the consciousness. It may change but sometimes these thing don't.
As for Disney, it has multiple issues at the moment. There is growing unease from investors that companies are stepping into minefields here and it is not going away.
Re: beer we'll have to see.
Re: Disney, allow me to point out yet again, thanks to RDS the issue has morphed from pushing back versus alleged Woke, to use of governmental authority and power to punish dissent from government policy and actions.
Plenty of Americans who actually agree with the Gov (and you?) on the first point, are opposed to him on the second.
It maybe that the issue has morphed back but that is not necessarily the point. Shareholders don't want corporates getting involved in political conflicts that can damage their businesses. They were willing to tolerate it to a point but not when it can cause complications.
It may be true that it has gone back to an issue about Govt authority over businesses but the original root cause was Disney deciding to weigh in on a Bill that was passed in the Florida legislature, which had nothing to do with its core business and where it weighed in because a vocal group of its employees pushed the company into taking a stance. Just as you argue RDS is using his power to punish dissent, it could be argued Disney was using its outsized influence in Florida to interfere in the state's politics.
Disney has a perfect right to comment on legislation proposed, pending and enacted into law. Especially when they think it affects them, their employees AND stockholders.
What YOU are calling interference, is what others call the rights of citizens AND businesses to disagree with government policies and actions. Something never done by companies in UK? Pretty common in USA.
True that, when the "original" issue of Disney lobbying publicly against "don't say gay" there was higher support for RDS position (according to polling) when it was framed in terms of curbing corporate power, rather than on need to combat the Woke menace.
HOWEVER, RDS's blatant and (he obviously thinks) self-serving efforts to use state power versus Disney, seriously undermine his own best argument.
My guess is that HIS effervescence, so to speak, is in more danger than Disney's. Or Budweiser's.
And, ditto, it might be argued that RDS has the right to comment on Disney's status in Florida. Disney has a special power which has is pretty much unique in the United States, acting as self-governing in its own territory.
It might also be argued that there is no reason why RDS should not revisit the issue if you believe the principle a legislature should not be bound by the decisions of its predecessors.
Also, FYI, you are actually not right that businesses have a right to disagree with government policies IF it conflicts with their primary duty which is to uphold shareholder interests, which takes precedence.
Personally, my view is (1) RDS shouldn't have pushed this and (2) Disney should have kept their mouths shut. Simple as that.
Question (one anyway) re your "IF" is WHO decides that paramount duty to shareholders has in fact been violated? Answering that it's shareholders mostly, and maybe judge occasionally, makes sense. But making the governor and legislature the judge AND jury? Sounds like a crock to me, ditto most Americans I'll (figuratively) wager.
As to "principle" one you cite is no-brainer, at least to me, but also beside the point. Which to me, is that it's rich (or risible in UK-speak) to talk about "principle" here, when clear motivation for DeSantis is to further his 2024 nomination prospects, by ripping out the beating heart of Mickey Mouse and feeding it to GOP primary voters.
My own view is that, while it made some sense for RDS to go after Disney RHETORICALLY, it made little sense when he started - and less now - to take serious ACTION against the Mouse That Roared.
IF he'd stuck to just shooting off his mouth, and forgone turning himself into a Huey Long - or Viktor Orban - impersonator, Ron DeSantis would be in FAR better shape politically today.
Now he has to crush Disney to win, which is bit guaranteed. It also looks petty as hell since its abundantly clear the whoke thing is about being thin skinned. Even those who dislike Disney can see that.
As you say just go after woke targets verbally, it works just fine. He raised the stakes.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. The 92-97 Conservative government let prices correct and as a result New Labour won in 1997.
Yes, but New Labour went on to instigate the biggest housing bubble we've ever seen, and then did everything possible to prop it up when it burst because they didn't want the same thing to happen to them, and then Cameron and Osborne gave us more of the same.
The infection point between government in the national interest and short-termist populism was 1997.
House prices were reasonable up until about 2001. Then they went crazy.
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
Absolutely, and every sympathy for Pagan and his father. The only thing I'd say which may help some is that not every dementia case is as bad as that. My father had it for a number of years before he died, and it took the form of sometimes total forgetfulness. He couldn't go out alone for fear of not finding his way home. He would forget simple things - my job, where we were living etc. But it never took an aggressive or disruptive form; my mother and I looked after him and he said he'd never been happier. Don't despair if you get it.
My mum has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's 87. We're hoping it will be manageable at home - but my dad is 89 so that might not be possible for very long. Let's see though. Probably best to keep the planning short term and not look too far ahead.
I wish you and your family well and sensible to take a day at a time
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
She's a billionaire, so why has she gone begging to the government
She may not even be aware she owns shares in the company, she's a billionaire... she probably has investments indirectly in hundreds if not thousands of startups.
Labour Black Socialists @labourblacksoc1 · 4h LBS calls on the Labour Party to: · Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip. · Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
I think the suspension should be lifted if she's provided them with the final draft of her letter. Her apology was that it was an earlier draft, and if that was sincere her final version was not offensive and they can and should wrap up the investigation and let her back. If the final draft is no better then her apology was not sincere and they'd have grounds to be cross.
On topic, I've been saying for months that the Tories are in for a shellacking on Thursday.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
Party activists need to engage in the real world. Did they want their party to be obliterated?
We're going to lose under Sunak. No boldness. No charisma.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
Truss trued that and comprehensively lost and with Johnson jointly destroyed the conservative brand
The Tory party is a mess of contradictions. The problem with Sunak carrying the can for defeat is the undefeated right wing tendency will be empowered. Perhaps it would have been better for Truss to have had her moment with destiny, allowing a more conservative Conservative Party to emerge from the rubble.
The problem was she did and she crashed the markets
Sunak has a mountain to climb but at least he and Hunt have stabilised the markets and he has had successes not least the WF
All the indicators are Starmer will win in 24 but Sunak may at least have mitigated the loses
Maybe, but the stage was set for 'we would have won if we'd stuck with Boris' the second he was gone. We can put good money the Tories reach for a comforting answer when they lose
The only question is what form that comfort blanket takes. Will it be "picking a continuity figure" (Barclay? Cleverly?) or "tickle the membership" (Badenoch? Truss?)?
It would take a very smart party to take the hint after their first defeat- who could even lead the Conservatives on that basis in 2025? Not easy, it it?
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
I think it's divide and rule. The State is gorging itself on taxpayers' money - that is where the dissatisfaction should be directed, not at one group who seems to be doing a bit less poorly out of it than the rest.
I would just say that those attacking the triple lock need to realise it was Starmer who mounted a campaign to retain it, and both Starmer and Reeves have affirmed they will do so if they win office
I would also comment I have never approved of NI contributions stopping at 60, and everyone in employment no matter their age should pay NI
The government has a majority of 70 or so, they could have abolished/modified the triple lock.
You cannot pin this on Starmer.
Indeed I can as he and Reeves have stated it is not up for discussion and they are likely to be in power in 18 months time
Unspoofable.
Repeat after me, the government have a notional majority of 70 or so and can abolish and/or amend the triple lock tomorrow.
They choose not to.
Wait until you hear the other stuff the government does that Starmer opposes.
I was with my 76 year old Conservative supporting neighbour yesterday and he has a compelling case that the small boats problem is Labour's fault as they want the boat people over here because when they achieve their citizenship they vote Labour.
With experience comes wisdom.
Tell him SKS Labour has a hierarchy of racism similar to his
Well Marquee Mark often explains how fundamentally evil Starmer is for sharing a Shadow Cabinet table with an anti-Semite, so you may have a point.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sometimes I wonder if the move to having two income families is benefiting society.
Mostly the extra income seems to be just to pay insane house prices rather than actually making anyone richer.
This isn't a 'women should be at home' thing - at least two of my friends are the other way round and that suits them fine - but it seems mad to pay other people to do all the things that used to be done within a family.
Sometimes there is no choice, but should it always be the first choice?
That’s heresy.
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18 2) some until primary school starts 3) some until secondary 4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
It is also driven by the need for economic growth.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
Point to think about. If women left the labour force to look after their kids the housing crisis would be solved. No more 2 income mortgages and house prices would crash. Not only that but without childcare costs families would need less money anyway. A win win.
Let me know where that's been a success in the real world, would you?
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
She's a billionaire, so why has she gone begging to the government
She may not even be aware she owns shares in the company, she's a billionaire... she probably has investments indirectly in hundreds if not thousands of startups.
She's married to a head of government, they should both be aware of the potential for conflicts and put in time and effort to be aware of any of those conflicts and act appropriate to the circumstances. They can afford to get people to investigate their diverse investments for them.
Otherwise it's just declaring themselves too rich to give a shit.
The reason taxes are so high in the UK is because huge sums of money go toward elderly care, the NHS (primarily used by the elderly), and triple locked pensions.
Another story I heard today: A serving police officer is “looking forward” to a 2% pay rise this year. His father, who retired on 3/4 of final pay, gets 10%. The police officer calculates that in four years, his retired father will out-earn him.
How on earth is that sustainable?
The thing I confess I don’t understand is that Britain is hardly alone in its demographic burden. In fact, thanks to immigration, it does a little better than most of its advanced country peers. So how the fuck do they manage without the country “falling to bits”?
Time to wheel out one of my favourite stats again: in the UK, the average pensioner household after adjusting for housing costs has a higher level of disposable income than the average working household. There are still a lot of poor pensioners around, but the implication is that the average mortgage-free pensioner now enjoys a substantially higher standard of living than the average working-age taxpayer.
The triple lock and the ever-tightening squeeze on housing supply are purpose built to transfer both asset and liquid wealth upwards, from younger, poorer people to older, richer ones - by ensuring that, over time, the gap between earned incomes on the one hand, and pension incomes and house prices on the other, will grow wider and wider and wider.
Whats amazing is the lack of gratitude amongst many of the elderly. We locked down too to protect them but in return get more moaning.
This 79 year old and his 83 year old wife are extremely grateful for our blessings and I have consistently stated my opposition to the triple lock
Indeed when Sunak suggested he was reviewing the triple lock it was Starmer who led the opposition to its demise
As someone who is nearing his diamond wedding anniversary, and vividly remembers the Queens coronation in 1953, I accept times have changed but there is a rather ugly narrative coming from some regarding the elderly, who in most cases are loved and adored by their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and it is good that these unpleasant views are not shared by most of the populace
Yes - we do need to re-define the generational contract (so to speak) but that's platitudes.
@Casino_Royale has a point - in many societies, the family is the primary carer for elderly relatives and there are, I believe, around a million people (mainly women) who are economically inactive because they are the primary carer for an older relative.
How do we redefine the relationship between the generations to the mutual benefit of both and society?
Sorry to be a bore... but it's housing, innit?
As things stand, it's very difficult to support a family on one typical salary, if one of your costs is paying for somewhere to live, whether that's rent or a recently taken out mortgage. There isn't an intrinsic reason why this has to be so- we have just chosen to order things that way.
But for all we all know that the solution likes in the direction "Build more homes of a sort that people want to live in rather than inflating their price through artificial scarcity", nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing that. (I fear that the answer involves regional government and PR, so that individual representatives don't have to oppose builiding in their area for fear of their re-election.)
Housing is spectacularly nuanced - it's much more than just building more houses. Look at Cornwall if you want to see what happens when you allow market forces to drive housing.
Nothing in the UK housing market could be remotely considered “letting market forces” decide what gets built.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
That's just meaningless.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
Even if you abolished all planning restrictions it wouldn't be a complete free for all because of the need for municipal services.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The trouble is that house prices are massive politically. A government knows if they collapse on their watch they'll be blamed and probably kicked out. So they do their damnedest to prevent this.
That’s only since our politics became infected with populism under New Labour. The previous government allowed prices to correct.
The notion of a house as a way to accrue wealth rather than something to live in took off in the Thatcher era.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
This is not the first, second, third or fourth story of this nature. It's a very smoky non-fire, let's just say that.
True. But she probably does have investments in hundreds of companies, some of which are bound to get govt funding or subsidy in some way.
Compare and contrast to David Cameron (personally lobbying for Greensill) or Johnson (Arcuri, loans from BBC chairman, free holidays galore, Russian donors etc.)
I may be completely wrong, but I don't yet see the scandal yet for Sunak.
Labour Black Socialists @labourblacksoc1 · 4h LBS calls on the Labour Party to: · Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip. · Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
I think the suspension should be lifted if she's provided them with the final draft of her letter. Her apology was that it was an earlier draft, and if that was sincere her final version was not offensive and they can and should wrap up the investigation and let her back. If the final draft is no better then her apology was not sincere and they'd have grounds to be cross.
The problem is that the final draft was on a computer she left in a camper van in Scotland. She went back and it’s gone….
She asked the lady who lent her the camper van to study in, but that lady denies even knowing her. Or that Scotland exists….
Labour Black Socialists @labourblacksoc1 · 4h LBS calls on the Labour Party to: · Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip. · Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
She's a billionaire, so why has she gone begging to the government
She may not even be aware she owns shares in the company, she's a billionaire... she probably has investments indirectly in hundreds if not thousands of startups.
She's married to a head of government, they should both be aware of the potential for conflicts and put in time and effort to be aware of any of those conflicts and act appropriate to the circumstances. They can afford to get people to investigate their diverse investments for them.
The argument about conflicts of interest can be taken too far, otherwise you'd end up having to hire a foreign PM with no personal stake in the success of the country at all.
Labour Black Socialists @labourblacksoc1 · 4h LBS calls on the Labour Party to: · Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip. · Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
I think the suspension should be lifted if she's provided them with the final draft of her letter. Her apology was that it was an earlier draft, and if that was sincere her final version was not offensive and they can and should wrap up the investigation and let her back. If the final draft is no better then her apology was not sincere and they'd have grounds to be cross.
The problem is that the final draft was on a computer she left in a camper van in Scotland. She went back and it’s gone….
She asked the lady who lent her the camper van to study in, but that lady denies even knowing her. Or that Scotland exists….
Whenever I am writing a letter I always make sure that the first draft says the complete opposite of what I intend to say.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
This is not the first, second, third or fourth story of this nature. It's a very smoky non-fire, let's just say that.
True. But she probably does have investments in hundreds of companies, some of which are bound to get govt funding or subsidy in some way.
Compare and contrast to David Cameron (personally lobbying for Greensill) or Johnson (Arcuri, loans from BBC chairman, free holidays galore, Russian donors etc.)
I may be completely wrong, but I don't yet see the scandal yet for Sunak.
It may not be a big deal if that's correct but that's sort of the point - its needlessly careless to keep tripping up in these things and demonstrates at best an attitude that's it's not important.
BBC says support for the monarchy amongst young people has dropped from 64% in 2016 to 32% today.
Cohort effect and arguably bad reporting. The people who were in the category of "young people" in 2016 are not necessarily in that category now. The people who were in the category of "young people" today were in the "child" category in 2016. They aren't the same people.
Start-up backed by Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty given government grant
The prime minister’s wife is a shareholder in a company that was awarded almost £350,000 of taxpayers’ money as part of a scheme to support entrepreneurs.
Records at Companies House show that Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, the investment company controlled by Akshata Murty, has a stake in Study Hall, an education technology start-up.
Last year the business received a government grant of £349,976 through Innovate UK, the arm’s-length body that provides money and support to companies developing new products or services.
Murty’s shareholding in a firm that has been the direct beneficiary of government funding raises fresh questions about her business dealings and the potential for a perceived conflict of interest.
Study Hall, which aims to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, was founded by Sofia Fenichell, a tech entrepreneur. Her previous venture Mrs Wordsmith, another education start-up dedicated to promoting children’s literacy, collapsed in 2021 just six months after receiving state support.
Mrs Wordsmith was given £650,000 of taxpayers’ money as a loan through the government’s Future Fund,
I know, Sunak is even more sleazier than Boris Johnson.
Serious question. Are you a Hindiphobe? Do you REALLY believe he is sleazier than Boris Johnson?
No, I am not a Hindiphobe (sic).
Fair enough but I argued with you relentlessly about David (Black Rock) Cameron, George (Deripaska) Osborne, Nick (Facebook) Clegg and Danny (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) Alexander. Perhaps you will correct me but I don't remember you deigning to criticise any of them.
I have. But show me when they were in power their wives got money from the government for their business interests?
Their wives probably weren't billionaires? I yield to no one in my loathing of Tory corruption but this is a bit weak to be honest.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
She's a billionaire, so why has she gone begging to the government
She may not even be aware she owns shares in the company, she's a billionaire... she probably has investments indirectly in hundreds if not thousands of startups.
She's married to a head of government, they should both be aware of the potential for conflicts and put in time and effort to be aware of any of those conflicts and act appropriate to the circumstances. They can afford to get people to investigate their diverse investments for them.
The argument about conflicts of interest can be taken too far, otherwise you'd end up having to hire a foreign PM with no personal stake in the success of the country at all.
No, because I said act appropriate in the circumstances. Declaring things properly would likely be sufficient in almost all cases given levels of investment and ministerial involvement in most matters being limited.
Its not about quarantining from involvement if you have any kind of peripheral interest, that's an excuse MPs use for why they shouldn't have to do it, when they cannot pretend they were confused.
I don't believe anyone here was deliberately winding me up, the simple fact is you don't really comprehend what coping with a loved one with dementia is like until you actually experience it. I know I didn't
I think my comments earlier would endorse your position
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
Absolutely, and every sympathy for Pagan and his father. The only thing I'd say which may help some is that not every dementia case is as bad as that. My father had it for a number of years before he died, and it took the form of sometimes total forgetfulness. He couldn't go out alone for fear of not finding his way home. He would forget simple things - my job, where we were living etc. But it never took an aggressive or disruptive form; my mother and I looked after him and he said he'd never been happier. Don't despair if you get it.
My mum has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's 87. We're hoping it will be manageable at home - but my dad is 89 so that might not be possible for very long. Let's see though. Probably best to keep the planning short term and not look too far ahead.
I wish you well. It’s not easy. My father lived at home for some years with dementia, and while I and siblings helped, we worked full time, so most of the strain fell on my mother. He was still pretty mobile (I would take afternoons off work to take him on walks), and would every so often escape the house and wander off. As that escalated (finally being rescued from the hard shoulder of the nearby motorway), full time residential care became unavoidable.
He was diagnosed rather younger than you mother, and lived until he was 92.
Comments
What YOU are calling interference, is what others call the rights of citizens AND businesses to disagree with government policies and actions. Something never done by companies in UK? Pretty common in USA.
True that, when the "original" issue of Disney lobbying publicly against "don't say gay" there was higher support for RDS position (according to polling) when it was framed in terms of curbing corporate power, rather than on need to combat the Woke menace.
HOWEVER, RDS's blatant and (he obviously thinks) self-serving efforts to use state power versus Disney, seriously undermine his own best argument.
My guess is that HIS effervescence, so to speak, is in more danger than Disney's. Or Budweiser's.
CCHQ just don't seem to understand that Sunak isn't very popular amongst party activists. Doesn't help with motivation for the hard yards of an election campaign....
There is another heresy. That all women want to work. If you actually listen to women -
1) sone want to look after their children, full time, until 18
2) some until primary school starts
3) some until secondary
4) etc
The “real women have a career” thing is just as stupid as “real women wash dishes” garbage.
Same, increasingly for men.
The idea that both parents *must* work is a curiously “progressive” ideal. Despite the fact that much of social infrastructure isn’t setup for parking the children with someone else 8am-7pm
The root is the landfill tax and recycling targets. Good aims, but causing flytipping instead.
Economically, all of those used to utterly dominate the world in every way. And that was about until 20 years ago.
That has changed, and will change further still. In tandem, confidence has been ebbing since the turn of the century, IMHO - early signs during the dotcom crash and politically during Iraq War II and has plummeted since the GFC.
I thought that Braverman (and Sunak) were proof indeed that the Conservatives cannot be racist because both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have families from the Indian Sub-Continent, and yet you are accused that your criticism of Sunak's probity is based on a racial issue. I would have thought that the evidence you have presented speaks for itself.
Other choices were a gamble, a risk. But give me a gamble over a sure fire loss every time....
The confidence has been ebbing since the turn of the century, IMHO, It's probably a bad idea for the kid's welfare too.
But, I don't think we care about that in this country very much. We care far more about adult choices to be able to do whatever they want.
It’s the childish attempt to freeze the country in time, in terms of a twee, fake view of the past.
News Fucking Flash - the country has changed massively. That’s what mass immigration was *supposed* to do.
Own it and build the fucking houses.
Having a spouse doing unpaid work at home vs having a spouse working and barely covering childcare costs, the latter creates at least two more economically productive units of GDP even if the net result is the same child cared for.
Why should I?
1950s - decline
1960s - managed declined
1970s - declining to manage
The Monarchy issue feels different though. I just think younger people are culturally detached from it.
It's also worth pointing out the weight on Council costs isn't just about the care of vulnerable older people but also children and younger adults who also need care. The costs (including inflation often of medicines) rise in excess of recorded inflationary measures such as CPI, RPI, RRIX or whatever. Care for younger adults can also go on for years.
She probably has a million and one business interests/connections - and seems implausible to me the PM gets involves in minor funding decisions made by an non department public body.
The timing of their conference is just the weekend after the weekend where the shellacking will be unveiled.
Good time for the plotters to plot....
It is a terrible time to witness a dear family member deteriorating with dementia and in my father in laws case we could not talk about it for 2 years after he died
I'm not sure whether you understand exactly where you were headed under Liz Truss. An extinction level event?
I'll go further. Part of the problem with our current political situation is that Labour and Conservative members feel entitled to be wholly indulgent in realising their fantasies 'safe' in the knowledge that their position as one of the big two in British politics is assured indefinitely.
What are you proposing? A complete free-for-all with houses built on any spare piece of land ? What kind of houses, for whom?
The other truth, whether you like it or not, is collapsing the UK housing market just isn't going to happen. Too many people have too much at stake in bricks and mortar - for many it's their only capital asset to help them in later life because their actual pension is wholly inadequate.
It might also be argued that there is no reason why RDS should not revisit the issue if you believe the principle a legislature should not be bound by the decisions of its predecessors.
Also, FYI, you are actually not right that businesses have a right to disagree with government policies IF it conflicts with their primary duty which is to uphold shareholder interests, which takes precedence.
Personally, my view is (1) RDS shouldn't have pushed this and (2) Disney should have kept their mouths shut. Simple as that.
Kinda like when John D. Rockefeller VII aka "Jay" showed up in West Virginia and started running for public office, ultimately Governor then US Senator.
"He's too rich to steal" was the refrain I heard more than once from my elders, as one of Jay's biggest selling points for WVa voters.
Am NOT saying that Rishi Sunak is as clean as the driven snow, given potential for conflicts of interests due to Mrs Sunak's family fortune. Just that instances so far cited, seem to come across as too picayune to cause significant political problems.
Sunak has a mountain to climb but at least he and Hunt have stabilised the markets and he has had successes not least the WF
All the indicators are Starmer will win in 24 but Sunak may at least have mitigated the loses
The shortage of housing is getting to the point that people cannot live in large sections of the country. This is getting worse.
Even if we doubled house building, the rate of price increase would be higher than the currently high rate of inflation.
The entire holiday sector in Cornwall is 25k properties, out of 250k properties. But apparently building 25k more properties would end the world. Or something.
As for prices not falling, things don't not happen just because people don't want them to. High asset prices are a function of the market, not a human right.
The fact that most of the booking systems are broken is not important, since there are no phone lines answered. So no complaints can be lodged. So all good.
Firstly. Seats gained/lost is a terrible measure. Due to radically differing ward sizes.
One gain in a Metro ward can be worth ten rural.
Secondly. Tory claims of 1k losses comes from a Thrasher and Rawlings projection many, many weeks ago when the polls were much, much worse.
Thirdly. Labour looking for 400 gains is an arbitrary figure representing being the largest Party of local government. It is symbolic rather than significant.
Finally. The metric to use is. Are Labour 10%
ahead on NEV or not?
If they are they are nailed on heading for government.
Thus have I heard.
Here in Seattle, we're feeling rather bummed this Sunday. Because Saturday was absolutely spectacular, weather-wise. With clear skies AND temperatures pushing 80F.
This week we hit 70F for the first time since October 2022. Spring has barely sprung, and has in fact been running weeks late.
For example, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, which officially began April 1, has barely gotten under way . . . because the tulips have just begun to bloom.
Yet things ARE bursting into flower all around us. On my own humble porch, the big leafy bush is again in flower, with long stems with clusters of white blossoms that smell like lemons, at least for maybe two weeks. PLUS the small tree in the small rectangle between me and the back of the neighboring taco shack is also in leaf and flower, with purple cones of blossoms.
Walking about in my 'hood, off of the main drag anyway, is like strolling in a garden. And even more so now than usual.
BTW (also FYI) spent much of Friday in Anacortes about 60 miles north of Seattle, on Fidalgo Island. Big (actually small) local resort town, with lots of coffee bars, restaurants, boutiques, etc., etc. filled mostly that day with older tourists. Though just a few blocks away, a shipyard where a Washington State Ferries boat was being repaired, also extensive waterfront. AND a great used bookstore.
Not a bad way to spend a few hours on a sunny Spring day.
Essentially an inflationary spiral, where hgh prices beget high wage settlements beget high prices.
Under that scenario, the government has no choice but to raise interest rates and to keep them high until inflation has well and truly gone.
That's what happened in the early 1990s. Inflation. High interest rates. And property prices, in real terms, fell 40%.
But boy was it painful. Millions were cast into negative equity. Repossessions soared. And we had one of the biggest recessions of the last half century.
After the fall of Johnson (who was something of a gamble in 2019), the Conservatives could have gone direct to Sunak as a "cut the losses" candidate. I doubt that Sunak could have won a general election even then, but a narrow loss was gettable.
The party decided to gamble on Truss, and lost that gamble pretty quickly. It was pretty likely to end badly. And whilst Sunak can repair some of the damage, "cut the losses" applies even more now.
When to cut your losses isn't just about risk and reward; it's also about your tolerance for losing everything.
Your alternative is travelling up to 50 miles on rural roads.
So be grateful for your lot.
Countries where women work are typically much, much happier than those where they do not.
You may want to revise and extend those remarks.
Anyone who stays at home all day to raise a child works a damn sight harder than those on six figure salaries who are on PB all day.
I know. I've done it.
The infection point between government in the national interest and short-termist populism was 1997.
As to "principle" one you cite is no-brainer, at least to me, but also beside the point. Which to me, is that it's rich (or risible in UK-speak) to talk about "principle" here, when clear motivation for DeSantis is to further his 2024 nomination prospects, by ripping out the beating heart of Mickey Mouse and feeding it to GOP primary voters.
My own view is that, while it made some sense for RDS to go after Disney RHETORICALLY, it made little sense when he started - and less now - to take serious ACTION against the Mouse That Roared.
IF he'd stuck to just shooting off his mouth, and forgone turning himself into a Huey Long - or Viktor Orban - impersonator, Ron DeSantis would be in FAR better shape politically today.
Its really not hard. When in doubt declare, and if youre an MP and particularly a minister you should by default start with some doubts.
@labourblacksoc1
·
4h
LBS calls on the Labour Party to:
· Lift Diane Abbott’s suspension and restore the whip.
· Fully acknowledge the existence of a hierarchy of racism within the Party and take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the Forde report.
F**k it get smashed in Asia for a year instead.
Karma.
I'm grateful I'm still working. Wouldn't have it any other way.
As you say just go after woke targets verbally, it works just fine. He raised the stakes.
https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/house-prices/
It would take a very smart party to take the hint after their first defeat- who could even lead the Conservatives on that basis in 2025? Not easy, it it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTqtdK-sqqE
Otherwise it's just declaring themselves too rich to give a shit.
Why not?
Compare and contrast to David Cameron (personally lobbying for Greensill) or Johnson (Arcuri, loans from BBC chairman, free holidays galore, Russian donors etc.)
I may be completely wrong, but I don't yet see the scandal yet for Sunak.
She asked the lady who lent her the camper van to study in, but that lady denies even knowing her. Or that Scotland exists….
Its not about quarantining from involvement if you have any kind of peripheral interest, that's an excuse MPs use for why they shouldn't have to do it, when they cannot pretend they were confused.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdkSUl-ci3Q
My father lived at home for some years with dementia, and while I and siblings helped, we worked full time, so most of the strain fell on my mother.
He was still pretty mobile (I would take afternoons off work to take him on walks), and would every so often escape the house and wander off. As that escalated (finally being rescued from the hard shoulder of the nearby motorway), full time residential care became unavoidable.
He was diagnosed rather younger than you mother, and lived until he was 92.