It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine #Zaluzhnyi, and top commander #Syrskyi rumoured to have been killed recently in Russian missile strikes.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
That is indeed weird. A government policy that actually works? Surely not.
On Twitter last week I saw a leaflet from the Tories in Pulpstar’s constituency which was condemning Labour’s plan to build 1,200 homes in the constituency.
This is simply not true. After the big diesel switch over which was inevitable, BR let the whole rail network rot. Yes they had their flagship intercity 125 programme but that was at the cost of underinvestment in the other 90% of the network. And the rolling stock was old, delapidated and unrelible.
In the mid 1980s under BR there were around 650 million passenger journeys a year. In 2018 just prior to the pandemic there were 1.8 billion passenger journies a year. Almost a 3 fold increase. And railways share of total travel has doubled since privatisation. In spite of this we also have the safest railways in Europe - and far safer than they were prior to privatisation. And punctuality is almost exactly the same as it was pre-privatisation at around 90%.
I also believe, that when enhancements are taken out of the picture, railway investment per passenger is about the same as it was under BR.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Willg is the type who think immigrants are a drain on the country. Best to ignore him.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
Thank goodness the terrorists that Suella said could be seeded among the Ukranian refugees didn’t make it here.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Willg is the type who think immigrants are a drain on the country. Best to ignore him.
The recent Russian immigrants are brilliant too. They’re investing billions into the UK, having fled with their money from Putin’s hell-hole failed state, with no intention of ever returning.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine #Zaluzhnyi, and top commander #Syrskyi rumoured to have been killed recently in Russian missile strikes.
Perhaps they have hot Zaluzhny. But given the loose connection between pro-Russian media and the truth in the past, I'd doubt it.
Incidentally, it looks as though Zelensky's saying the offensive won't go ahead yet. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65550427 Which may, of course, mean it's already ongoing. This really is turning out to be an information war.
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
One-second D&T stamp, rather than 1ms, and with no collision-avoidance in the database? Whoops. Didn’t we all learn this sh!t several decades ago, to use a TX number?
The thing is BR was shit. But it doesn't mean anyone is advocating going back to it, or that if we nationalised the trains today, it would be bad.
Why has no other country in Europe followed our lead?
Try travelling on a Franch railway other than the TGV. Try commuting into Paris (as I did for many years). Try travelling up the Loire Valley on a rural train rather than the TGV. (Actually do try this as long as you are doing it once. It is very...rustic.)
If you have to do it on a regular basis they are just as shit as the UK system.
Very true. Rather different in Switzerland where I am today. Excellent system.
Unless you can't afford the ticket, in which case Switzerland will ban you from having a cheaper alternative, and you just can't travel:
"Earlier this year, German company Flixbus was fined CHF3,000 ($3,066) as passengers were using its coaches on the Lyon to Constance route for cut-price inter-city travel within Switzerland. The buses stop at Geneva, Bern and Zurich. For comparison, a ticket on the Swiss Federal Railways between Geneva and Zurich costs CHF44.50 while a Flixbus ticket from Lyon to Constance is a mere CHF20."
That's true here - because Newcastle has trains via Lumo as well as LNER (so price competition) - LNER tickets from Newcastle to London (and vice versa) are often a lot cheaper than Durham / Darlington tickets to London.
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
That is indeed weird. A government policy that actually works? Surely not.
On Twitter last week I saw a leaflet from the Tories in Pulpstar’s constituency which was condemning Labour’s plan to build 1,200 homes in the constituency.
Nimbyism is a blight on our society that few political parties, if any, are immune to.
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
So Fujitsu are institutionally incapable of implementing transactionality?
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
So Fujitsu are institutionally incapable of implementing transactionality?
The parallel will only be complete when the recipient of the wrong data gets sent to jail for having obtained it.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine #Zaluzhnyi, and top commander #Syrskyi rumoured to have been killed recently in Russian missile strikes.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Hmmm " mouth breathers" Seems you are trying to dehumanise people who are pro immigration a common tactic of the fascist right. We see you.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
I explained that this morning. Higher growth, ceteris paribus = higher inflation because there is increased demand. If I was not even more modest than @TSE I might claim to have predicted that too!
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
That is indeed weird. A government policy that actually works? Surely not.
On Twitter last week I saw a leaflet from the Tories in Pulpstar’s constituency which was condemning Labour’s plan to build 1,200 homes in the constituency.
I thought it was very negative - but the figure was 12,000; not 1,200. As I noted upthread they've managed to put 450 into a single parish !
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Hmmm " mouth breathers" Seems you are trying to dehumanise people who are pro immigration a common tactic of the fascist right. We see you.
"Fascist" is a word that is often thrown around. Currently, the best example of a 'fascist' government is the one based in Moscow. It's a good job we don't have any Russian or pro-Russian fascists on here, isn't it?
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
Yes they now expect 0.7% growth next year and 0.8% growth in 2025, less than half the kind of growth rates we saw pre-Brexit. These forecast revisions (which are overdue, their forecast has been too pessimistic for a while) have nothing to do with their assumptions on any Brexit impact (which has probably already largely happened and so isn't a massive factor in the forecast in any case). But whatever, Brexiteers will continue to live in their own special version of reality.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The US Overton window is not only huge, but is massively polarised at both extremes.
You’re either in favour of drag sex shows in primary schools, or against a morning-after pill for a rape victim - with seemingly little in between.
Those who try to take a centrist or nuanced position, such as Tim Pool, get called far-right by the far-left.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
That is indeed weird. A government policy that actually works? Surely not.
On Twitter last week I saw a leaflet from the Tories in Pulpstar’s constituency which was condemning Labour’s plan to build 1,200 homes in the constituency.
I thought it was very negative - but the figure was 12,000; not 1,200. As I noted upthread they've managed to put 450 into a single parish !
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
An American PB equivalent might show more Trump support, I guess. There are things about the country we struggle to understand. Although tbh I think you're being a touch generous (to us) by saying 'not a word of support' for him on here ever. I recall a fair amount in the past, and ok there's very little now but still some. Plus there will be PBers who secretly have a soft spot and keep shtum to avoid a tongue lashing.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
If I was American I would struggle to vote for either party as they are both completely nuts. If it's Trump vs. Biden again I really hope a credible 3rd party stands.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
A lot of it is the desire to fit in. Even some things Putin say make sense if you keep an open mind but the social pressure to condemn everything he says is too strong.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Hmmm " mouth breathers" Seems you are trying to dehumanise people who are pro immigration a common tactic of the fascist right. We see you.
Ironic given you have chosen to dehumanise people, in a prior thread, who are not pro immigration, or as wildly pro it as you appear to be.
Indeed it is a tactic to portray anyone with genuine concerns about large scale migration, such as inadequate house building, infrastructure and support, as being "racist". You are the other side of the coin.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
Yes they now expect 0.7% growth next year and 0.8% growth in 2025, less than half the kind of growth rates we saw pre-Brexit. These forecast revisions (which are overdue, their forecast has been too pessimistic for a while) have nothing to do with their assumptions on any Brexit impact (which has probably already largely happened and so isn't a massive factor in the forecast in any case). But whatever, Brexiteers will continue to live in their own special version of reality.
These forecasts are still too low. And the assumptions re Brexit were things like restraints on labour reducing growth which have proven to be nonsense given the level of immigration.
We will be having this argument for years to come of course. And it will not be me that is living in an alternative reality but those who pretend what might have been.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
If I was American I would struggle to vote for either party as they are both completely nuts. If it's Trump vs. Biden again I really hope a credible 3rd party stands.
Dave Smith is likely to be the Libertarian candidate. He’s a professional comedian, and was on Rogan’s podcast the other day.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Yet these people who endlessly issue forecasts that are rarely ever near correct still get paid handsome sums to continue forecasting
I was was, and I suspect many of us were, as wrong in my job I would not last that long.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
It is indeed a trap for Starmer, but 'elephant' is hyperbole.
It would be risky but Starmer could usefully point to the utter disaster of Brexit and the loss of key employees in the entertainment industry (where it is disastrous), the NHS (not much better), and food supplies (ditto).
We NEED workers!!!! And you're not going to get a 55 yr old white collar worker out of early retirement to go and pull up potatoes in a muddy Lincolnshire field on a freezing February morning.
But we have already established that migration is at a record high. That is people who have applied legally for leave to live and work here. Probably 500k in the last 12 months. The idea that we need boat people to meet our labour needs rather than the ones we choose for ourselves is a nonsense.
Similarly, the idea that safe legal routes will somehow put the unsafe illegal routes out of business is really a fantasy and simply deflection from the problem.
I am no fan of the Rwanda scheme. It is immoral, expensive and ultimately unworkable. But the arguments that there is an obvious and more humane alternative are even more spurious than the arguments for the scheme itself and that's saying something.
Immigration is at a record high and yet as the holiday season begins every single cafe, pub and restaurant down here in Sidmouth and neighbouring towns and villages has a job vacancies poster in its window. Obviously, asylum seekers are not going to fill those gaps, but they do suggest we still need more labour from somewhere - or or a decision to accept long-term decline in many non-metropolitan areas.
Or perhaps they should think about offering staff more than minimum wage. Hire five people on £12/hr for the restaurant, rather than six people on £10/hour.
Perhaps they should - but good luck running a business on the back of that in a UK seaside town catering to families on a budget. In the old days the problem was solved by having young people from the EU come over for a season, live in relatively crappy accommodation and earn some cash while learning a level of English that would enable them to go home and get a better job. It worked well for all concerned.
It worked well for all concerned, except for the locals who could no longer afford accommodation on minimum wage, and everyone competing for the limited property for sale, as more homes were converted to short-term property lets empty for half the year.
The locals run the cafes, bars and restaurants. More generally, they tend to earn more than minimum wage - hence the vacancies. But I agree that more housebuilding is needed.
The answer for the house building industry will always be more housing because that is where they make their profits.
A better solution would be the return of council housing and the acceptance that market forces are sub-optimal to solve this problem.
The housing shortage is as a result of a deliberate series of policies, which aim limit house building.
Strangely, this results in limited house building.
That is indeed weird. A government policy that actually works? Surely not.
On Twitter last week I saw a leaflet from the Tories in Pulpstar’s constituency which was condemning Labour’s plan to build 1,200 homes in the constituency.
I thought it was very negative - but the figure was 12,000; not 1,200. As I noted upthread they've managed to put 450 into a single parish !
Crikey, 12,000 but it is what is needed.
But very negative.
Of the 450, 165 are going to old pit land and 285 onto what was farmland. Whilst the Barratt ex-farmland will be a bonanza for the farmer, it of course does very very marginally lessen food security for the nation.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
But I expect CPI to drop in April when the April 2022 energy increases drop out, also due to falling petrol/diesel costs. Maybe to 8.5%. Food still going up. Maybe to 5% at year end but unlikely to be less.
Historically I think around 3% inflation and 4% interest rates is the sweet spot.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Hmmm " mouth breathers" Seems you are trying to dehumanise people who are pro immigration a common tactic of the fascist right. We see you.
Do you think there a lot of "facist right" people in the UK?
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
You know who said something along those lines?
Sherlock Livermore, as I live and breathe !!!!
He was bound to foal up once he had the bit between his teeth
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Just something obviously untrue.
So they haven’t been supporting this country for decades?
Depends on who you mean by "they" and what you mean by "support". Both groups have high employment rates. As whole group averages, Indians have been a net negative financially, mainly because they have been here longer and so many are now past working age and the high costs of healthcare and pensions kick-in, which surpass the tax take. Poles are contributors up to this point, but the lifetime cost will eventually be worse than Indians because they tend to be more concentrated in lower skill economic activity than Indians.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Hmmm " mouth breathers" Seems you are trying to dehumanise people who are pro immigration a common tactic of the fascist right. We see you.
Do you think there a lot of "facist right" people in the UK?
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
Yes they now expect 0.7% growth next year and 0.8% growth in 2025, less than half the kind of growth rates we saw pre-Brexit. These forecast revisions (which are overdue, their forecast has been too pessimistic for a while) have nothing to do with their assumptions on any Brexit impact (which has probably already largely happened and so isn't a massive factor in the forecast in any case). But whatever, Brexiteers will continue to live in their own special version of reality.
These forecasts are still too low. And the assumptions re Brexit were things like restraints on labour reducing growth which have proven to be nonsense given the level of immigration.
We will be having this argument for years to come of course. And it will not be me that is living in an alternative reality but those who pretend what might have been.
Why too low. With higher interest rates feeding through and various inexpected events surely growth is more likely to be downgraded next.
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
I wonder if human beings have overestimated their ability to write infallible computer code. (Perhaps AI could do better).
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
You know who said something along those lines?
Sherlock Livermore, as I live and breathe !!!!
He was bound to foal up once he had the bit between his teeth
I am still not convinced it is him. What do others say. Yay or Neigh ?
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
A lot of it is the desire to fit in. Even some things Putin say make sense if you keep an open mind but the social pressure to condemn everything he says is too strong.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
Populism is generally very narrowly targeted. The idea is to appeal to the preconceptions of the people you need to vote for you, without restraining yourself by objective facts or the opinions of people outside the target demographic. So generally populists will appear unpleasant or ridiculous to anyone they're not trying to get to vote for them, especially people in foreign countries.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
I wonder if human beings have overestimated their ability to write infallible computer code.
It’s not just their ability to write code, it’s their inability to learn the lessons of several decades of code-writing.
The latest fad is to make something quick and dirty, then fix the bugs as the customers report them. As someone who used to test software - before it got near a customer - for a living, that’s quite the transition.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
A lot of it is the desire to fit in. Even some things Putin say make sense if you keep an open mind but the social pressure to condemn everything he says is too strong.
Oh, here's another one.
Yes, we need to keep an open mind about the outpourings of a man whose troops have abducted numerous Ukrainian children and taken them to Russia.
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
Russia has openly accused the WHO and American Big Pharma of world-scale CORRUPTION and crimes against HUMANITY. Let that sink in. Covid was a power-grabbing FRAUD and MASS depop event from the beginning. While China and Russia seek justice, our MSM is still covering it up.
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
At least Trump won't be able to argue political bias on the part of the jury in any appeal he might make.
Trump lawyer rejected claim that juror’s political affiliation signified bias A newly unsealed filing in the E. Jean Carroll case reveals how Trump successfully kept a listener of a far-right podcast on the jury. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/10/trump-lawyer-e-jean-carroll-jurors-00096308 ...“A juror’s political affiliation is not grounds for dismissal, even in cases involving a political figure,” said Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina in a May 2 filing that was unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday. Kaplan ultimately sided with Tacopina’s argument, leaving the juror in place. Tacopina was responding to an April 30 motion by the plaintiff, E. Jean Carroll, to disqualify the juror — identified only as “Juror No. 77.” Carroll’s legal team wanted him disqualified for “inferred bias” based on his acknowledgement that he listened to Pool’s show a few times over the last six months.
“Juror No. 77 has described Pool’s podcast as ‘independent,’ ‘middle,’ and ‘balanced.’ A juror who views Pool’s podcast in that way may subjectively believe that he has no relevant bias, but has just as certainly confirmed that he does,” an attorney for Carroll wrote in the motion. “No person capable of deciding this case fairly and impartially would seek out only Pool’s content, rely on YouTube to promote other content based on Pool’s podcast, and maintain that Pool’s commentary is indeed ‘middle’ and ‘balanced.’”..
LOL, Tim Pool is most definitely not ‘far right’, he’s economically centrist and libertarian, although he thinks that Trump is the best on offer at the moment.
There does however appear to be a co-ordinated smear campaign against him at the moment. His daily podcast gets 300-400k views, and he gets another couple of million views from clips and other shorts.
There is no way anyone remotely centrist can consider the pseudo-fascist Trump is a better offer than the center left Biden.
Plenty of Americans do.
Pool’s having a lot of fun with it on Twitter though, and he probably gets another 100k subscribers this week.
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
Yes they now expect 0.7% growth next year and 0.8% growth in 2025, less than half the kind of growth rates we saw pre-Brexit. These forecast revisions (which are overdue, their forecast has been too pessimistic for a while) have nothing to do with their assumptions on any Brexit impact (which has probably already largely happened and so isn't a massive factor in the forecast in any case). But whatever, Brexiteers will continue to live in their own special version of reality.
These forecasts are still too low. And the assumptions re Brexit were things like restraints on labour reducing growth which have proven to be nonsense given the level of immigration.
We will be having this argument for years to come of course. And it will not be me that is living in an alternative reality but those who pretend what might have been.
Why too low. With higher interest rates feeding through and various inexpected events surely growth is more likely to be downgraded next.
Because inflation will remain higher than forecast base rates will remain negative in real terms for longer which makes investment and borrowing relatively cheap. Older readers may remember a time when inflation was about 10% before but it really didn't matter because wages were growing by the same amount and the capital debt of a mortgage was reducing fast.
By the end of this year, more probably the beginning of next, we might get back to our first real interest rate in the best part of a decade but by then I expect wages to be rising in real terms as well making that affordable and keeping demand relatively strong. The electoral cycle is also likely to result in more government boosting until late 2024.
2025 is harder to predict at this point but it seems unlikely that an incoming Labour government's first steps will be to significantly tighten the purse strings.
Russia has openly accused the WHO and American Big Pharma of world-scale CORRUPTION and crimes against HUMANITY. Let that sink in. Covid was a power-grabbing FRAUD and MASS depop event from the beginning. While China and Russia seek justice, our MSM is still covering it up.
Putin’s speech yesterday stated that the Globalists have captured the West…and how their policies entail child-sex trafficking, child mutilation, forced Transgender Education, CRT…and the worship of Satan in all institutions…as our Politicians and MSM state he’s the enemy?
Fujitsu staff had ‘unrestricted and unauditable’ remote access to Post Office branch systems? Good grief. So somebody was lying in the High Court? I ask again, why is Paula Vennells still in Holy Orders with a CBE?
We just had a nice Fujitsu cock-up in Japan. They were contracted to build a system where you could print your government personal record at convenience stores. They made it save the record of the data it had to print in a file identified by the time. As soon as it started being used enough that two people in different convenient stores were using the system at the same time, the system started randomly printing out other people's data.
One-second D&T stamp, rather than 1ms, and with no collision-avoidance in the database? Whoops. Didn’t we all learn this sh!t several decades ago, to use a TX number?
Russia has openly accused the WHO and American Big Pharma of world-scale CORRUPTION and crimes against HUMANITY. Let that sink in. Covid was a power-grabbing FRAUD and MASS depop event from the beginning. While China and Russia seek justice, our MSM is still covering it up.
Putin’s speech yesterday stated that the Globalists have captured the West…and how their policies entail child-sex trafficking, child mutilation, forced Transgender Education, CRT…and the worship of Satan in all institutions…as our Politicians and MSM state he’s the enemy?
Putin’s speech yesterday stated that the Globalists have captured the West…and how their policies entail child-sex trafficking, child mutilation, forced Transgender Education, CRT…and the worship of Satan in all institutions…as our Politicians and MSM state he’s the enemy?
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine #Zaluzhnyi, and top commander #Syrskyi rumoured to have been killed recently in Russian missile strikes.
There is no fucking way Zaluzhny is dead. He's the Pentagon's guy and the backup plan if Z goes off script so he is very well protected. Sirs'kiy has been so minutely micromanaged in Bakhmut it wouldn’t make any difference if he got wasted or not.
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
It's appalling but I'm probably in a minority. Especially my view that with chronic labour shortages across many sectors the answer to get Britain's economy booming is, er, migration.
We have very high net migration right now. Half a million more people, net, for the last year. That means just to meet the needs of migrants we need to build an entire Birmingham sized city, and all associated infrastructure, every couple of years. We are not coming remotely close to that.
Is there any number of migrants that you would call too many?
Im not a believer in putting set numbers of migrants as a limit. Immigration has immensely benefited this country over the last 50 years. We now have a more cosmopolitan outward looking population.
What if 6 billion people arrived in the U.K. next week?
Everything has limits. Just because the subject makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t make it go away.
I say build a Birmingham each year to cope with the increasing population. Then you hear people whining both about restrictions on immigration *and* wanting the country not to change.
If you want a more “cosmopolitan” population then you are either in favour of more Birminghams or you are an idiot. Pick one.
I don’t know that I’m favour of the current Birmingham, let alone more of them. There must be a way of accommodating an increasing population without building more Birminghams. Can we build more Milton Keyneses?
Either way, the current high rates of immigration are Conservative Party policy. If people don’t like them, vote out the Conservatives.
Population of MK is 250k, so there need to be two more MKs built every year, just to stand still on housing the population increase. Which means in practice three or four new MKs per year, for the next few years.
A tweet from earlier today (from a source I would trust to have accurate figures) reckons 700,000 immigrants arrived last year.
So it's 3 Milton Keynes a year and 2 of them probably need to be in the South East.
Yes, although 250k are Ukranians, of whom more than 80% are living with families on what’s presumably a temporary basis. There were a couple of hundred thousand from HK as well, which was a one-off but they still need housing. There were also a couple of hundred thousand who left the country last year, so net immigration is closer to 500k.
Well, it is "tens of thousands" as promised by Cameron. Just 50 tens.
I don't know why gammons get sand in the vag over the channel boats. The numbers are inconsequential compared to the tory mass inward migration project.
Its alwaus amusing when the open borders brigade get to a point in the debate where they run out of logical arguments so throw out racist slurs as a way to divert attentiom from their weak position. Positively Trumpian.
Your position would be more honest if you just admitted you dont like immigrants.
The Ukranian immigrants to the UK have been awesome! Shame they’ll almost all go back to Ukraine, once the Russian army has been sent back to Russia having run out of tanks.
The Polish and Indian immigrants have been supporting this country for decades. They’re now leaving because we don’t value their contribution. Sod Ukraine in this particular instance
Wrong. Indian immigration is increasing massively.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
It's already relatively easy to get permission as there is an accelerated (statutory) timetable with default permission given if not met by the planning authority, and limited grounds for refusal.
Your "anywhere they are needed" bit is also nonsense as there are a range of sites in any given area that will be suitable. What you're really saying is that mobile phone networks should be allowed to go for the cheapest available site in any given area.
Look, I've nothing hugely against these things and they are dotted on various taller buildings and generate some income for sports clubs who have one next to or on the clubhouse for example. But in terms of the genuine problems we have with the planning system go, occasionally blocking a mobile phone mast site is low on the list of concerns.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
Just confirmed he thinks / expects inflation will halve this year.
That would make inflation 5% or so.
So to keep up with prices in April 2022 in April 2024 you need to have a 16.5% pay increase (random months picked but I have a contract renewal pending and it's nice to work out what increase I need).
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
Populism is generally very narrowly targeted. The idea is to appeal to the preconceptions of the people you need to vote for you, without restraining yourself by objective facts or the opinions of people outside the target demographic. So generally populists will appear unpleasant or ridiculous to anyone they're not trying to get to vote for them, especially people in foreign countries.
I had not thought of it in those terms. Very astute.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
You know who said something along those lines?
Sherlock Livermore, as I live and breathe !!!!
He was bound to foal up once he had the bit between his teeth
I am still not convinced it is him. What do others say. Yay or Neigh ?
There's an outside possibility it's Leon being a prat, experimenting with ChatGPT, and composing posts in the manner of...
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
An American PB equivalent might show more Trump support, I guess. There are things about the country we struggle to understand. Although tbh I think you're being a touch generous (to us) by saying 'not a word of support' for him on here ever. I recall a fair amount in the past, and ok there's very little now but still some. Plus there will be PBers who secretly have a soft spot and keep shtum to avoid a tongue lashing.
I have a soft spot for someone who is democratically elected by any given electorate so put me in the democracy not as bad as all the other systems column.
But I expect CPI to drop in April when the April 2022 energy increases drop out, also due to falling petrol/diesel costs. Maybe to 8.5%. Food still going up. Maybe to 5% at year end but unlikely to be less.
Historically I think around 3% inflation and 4% interest rates is the sweet spot.
We may be in that territory in 2024 and 2025. Interest rates unlikely to fall below 4% before end 2025.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
Maybe it's time for people to stop being so reliant on mobile phones. Life hasn't exactly improved a lot since they were introduced.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
He didn't confirm what the rate of inflation will be... he predicted just as any forecaster might.
The Bank of England doesn't have access to a crystal ball that is denied to everyone else. They employ capable economists and put a lot of effort into their forecasts, but aren't the only ones doing so, and the accuracy of their predictions varies.
Very interesting events at Berkshire Hathaway meeting.
HERO Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder lays it all out in front of Warren Buffet. “We all know how much Bill Gates loves children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times...
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
You know who said something along those lines?
Sherlock Livermore, as I live and breathe !!!!
He was bound to foal up once he had the bit between his teeth
I am still not convinced it is him. What do others say. Yay or Neigh ?
There are so many nuances and similarities my vote is Yay
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
I would generally agree with this. It's the tens of millions of USA voters who don't that is troubling in the 1930s sort of sense. So it isn't 'fairly universal' at this moment.
Possibly the first sighting of a T-55 near the front. Looks like they're being used actually as tanks, rather than converted to engineering support vehicles, or IFVs.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
Maybe it's time for people to stop being so reliant on mobile phones. Life hasn't exactly improved a lot since they were introduced.
Actually I would suggest exactly the opposite. Life for most people has been transformed in a positive way by mobile phones.
Depressing write up on BBC about Trump's town hall event. Basically that he will never stop saying 2020 was rigged, will pardon 6 Jan rioters, will definitely shift policy on Ukraine (though exactly how is unclear, but ending it in 24 hours as he suggests could only occur if he stopped ongoing support), and that the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand.
If they get the chance the party will pick him again and the representatives will fall in line.
Yes, not a good read. It's hard to see him winning the presidency back, with things as they are now, but it'd be better if he isn't on the ballot as the GOP candidate. If he gets the Nom he has to have a non-trivial chance just because of 'events', eg a Biden incident, a bank crash, something in Russia/Ukraine etc.
The nomination is his to lose. Could he become president then? Of course, especially if the economic backdrop worsens, as seems likely.
Very scary on so many levels. Good for all the worst people (eg the MAGA goons and Putin) and bad for everyone else. If it were to happen my Big Short would turn into the worst single betting loss I've ever had and I can honestly hand-on-heart say I don't even think about that aspect. That's how bleak a prospect it is.
I'd give Trump about a 40% chance of winning, if he runs against Biden. That is far too close for comfort.
Share the sentiment but I rate it more a 25%.
On this subject, there is an interesting feature about PB. SFAICS there are several people/positions that have Zero support with PBers. These include: Trump, Xi, Putin, Assad, all sides in Sudan, North Korea, the Burmese government and so on.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because: (a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small (b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany (c) something else. (What?)
The fairly universal ability to recognise a turd by its smell?
I would generally agree with this. It's the tens of millions of USA voters who don't that is troubling in the 1930s sort of sense. So it isn't 'fairly universal' at this moment.
George W Bush's favourite observation applies. You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want!
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
You know who said something along those lines?
Sherlock Livermore, as I live and breathe !!!!
He was bound to foal up once he had the bit between his teeth
I am still not convinced it is him. What do others say. Yay or Neigh ?
There's an outside possibility it's Leon being a prat, experimenting with ChatGPT, and composing posts in the manner of...
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
Of course it will. Utility price inflation going from 90% to slightly negative will, on its own, lead to a halving in inflation. Almost nobody thinks inflation won't fall by at least a half in the next year. Why do you think Sunak chose this as a government "target"?
Incidentally, these “donor dinners” or whatever they are, seem to happen every couple of months. Biden comes to Manhattan and whoever this donor is, they seem to live v close to my kids’ school.
They close down all the nearest roads, including Fifth Avenue, and it’s an absolute nightmare.
Thank goodness London doesn’t half close down just because Rishi wants to go to Wimbledon or something.
Possibly the first sighting of a T-55 near the front. Looks like they're being used actually as tanks, rather than converted to engineering support vehicles, or IFVs.
The planning system must be changed so mobile phone masts can be built anywhere they are needed. People should not be allowed to reject them. This is critical infrastructure
Maybe it's time for people to stop being so reliant on mobile phones. Life hasn't exactly improved a lot since they were introduced.
Actually I would suggest exactly the opposite. Life for most people has been transformed in a positive way by mobile phones.
It’s just that people don’t seem to think that having one clamped to their ear or kept in their pocket for long periods of time exposes them to much more than having a mast at the end of their street.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
Of course it will. Utility price inflation going from 90% to slightly negative will, on its own, lead to a halving in inflation. Almost nobody thinks inflation won't fall by at least a half in the next year. Why do you think Sunak chose this as a government "target"?
I concur with this and remain optimistic that CPI Dec 2023 will be around 4 to 5%. Slightly lower than latest Bank projections. Food inflation increases the uncertainty re this though.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
Of course it will. Utility price inflation going from 90% to slightly negative will, on its own, lead to a halving in inflation. Almost nobody thinks inflation won't fall by at least a half in the next year. Why do you think Sunak chose this as a government "target"?
In Big G world, Sunak is working tirelessly to bring down inflation, absolutely tirelessly.
Possibly the first sighting of a T-55 near the front. Looks like they're being used actually as tanks, rather than converted to engineering support vehicles, or IFVs.
Simply not true. BR was developing and investing in new trains enormously. Diesels, DMUs, 125, 225, electrifrication at far greater speed and value for money than today.
Privatisers were to a great extent living off BR's carcass and picking the meat from it for many years. The private railway companies were still using bloody Pacers (a mistake of BR, it should be said) decades later!
That is both right and wrong. Privatisation did lead to a years-long stall in new orders, but when that was over they really got going. But they were also battling a massive (and unexpected) increase in passengers and services.
If anything, we have the opposite problem, with stock build 10-12 years ago off to the scrappers. And that might be as much the DfT's fault as it is the operators.
Pacers were also blooming useful. They were perhaps kept a decade too long, but they should never be called a 'mistake'. They were ideal for the services they were used on.
I am not professing to say that nationalisation will suddenly make the trains better. I just do not see what we are getting by paying private companies to run the trains.
If they were owned by the government today, they would be exactly the same, as say LNER is, we just don't have the money going abroad. I cannot see how anyone objects to that.
For a patriotic country that apparently wants to take back control, what could be more pro-Britain than that? Why are we so useless France have to run our trains? FRANCE!
Private companies built the railways. Private companies actually invest in new trains and rolling stock rather than relying on massively outdated stuff as it used to be under BR. The worst part of the rail network and the part that causes the most delays is the track and infrastructure - which is in public hands.
I am not professing to say that nationalisation will suddenly make the trains better. I just do not see what we are getting by paying private companies to run the trains.
If they were owned by the government today, they would be exactly the same, as say LNER is, we just don't have the money going abroad. I cannot see how anyone objects to that.
For a patriotic country that apparently wants to take back control, what could be more pro-Britain than that? Why are we so useless France have to run our trains? FRANCE!
Private companies built the railways. Private companies actually invest in new trains and rolling stock rather than relying on massively outdated stuff as it used to be under BR. The worst part of the rail network and the part that causes the most delays is the track and infrastructure - which is in public hands.
Simply not true. BR was developing and investing in new trains enormously. Diesels, DMUs, 125, 225, electrifrication at far greater speed and value for money than today.
Privatisers were to a great extent living off BR's carcass and picking the meat from it for many years. The private railway companies were still using bloody Pacers (a mistake of BR, it should be said) decades later!
This is simply not true. After the big diesel switch over which was inevitable, BR let the whole rail network rot. Yes they had their flagship intercity 125 programme but that was at the cost of underinvestment in the other 90% of the network. And the rolling stock was old, delapidated and unrelible.
In the mid 1980s under BR there were around 650 million passenger journeys a year. In 2018 just prior to the pandemic there were 1.8 billion passenger journies a year. Almost a 3 fold increase. And railways share of total travel has doubled since privatisation. In spite of this we also have the safest railways in Europe - and far safer than they were prior to privatisation. And punctuality is almost exactly the same as it was pre-privatisation at around 90%.
Point taken re Pacers.
But both of you are using what happened in much more recent years to 'disprove' what BR would have done if it had been kept in state control. Simply not on, logically. Edit: though, by the same logic, I can't prove you are wrong!
And the combination of private firms plus DfT has been lethal in many ways. From the Railtrack disaster to the chaos of electrification.
Possibly the first sighting of a T-55 near the front. Looks like they're being used actually as tanks, rather than converted to engineering support vehicles, or IFVs.
So models which had built in assumptions that the UK would underperform because of Brexit proved to be seriously wrong. Forecasts that the UK would be the worst performer of the G7 are also wrong. The UK's performance is being more influenced by a somewhat expansionary government policy.
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
And in spite of the rapid falls in inflation predicted by some people not coming to pass. Tricky thing this prediction business.
Bank of England governor just confirmed live on tv inflation will half this year
Of course it will. Utility price inflation going from 90% to slightly negative will, on its own, lead to a halving in inflation. Almost nobody thinks inflation won't fall by at least a half in the next year. Why do you think Sunak chose this as a government "target"?
Have you seen Goldman Sachs' energy price forecast for the rest of this year. They don't see energy prices falling...
Now I do think their forecast is utterly wrong but there is a risk involved if energy prices don't return to something like 2021 levels...
Mind you fixing Diesel prices where Asda have stopped acting as the low price setter would solve some of the issues.
Comments
Incidentally, passenger numbers are now higher than pre-pandemic, although patterns have changed.
https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/144702/uk-rail-passenger-numbers-exceed-pre-pandemic-levels/
I am shocked. Just shocked. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
https://twitter.com/StarskyUA/status/1656513854916947968
Perhaps they have hot Zaluzhny. But given the loose connection between pro-Russian media and the truth in the past, I'd doubt it.
Incidentally, it looks as though Zelensky's saying the offensive won't go ahead yet.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65550427
Which may, of course, mean it's already ongoing. This really is turning out to be an information war.
Of course, this is all a broad average which ignores the skill subsets. The point I continuously repeat is that we should take the high skilled ones and not the low skill ones, something the mouth breathers are unable to internalize.
The obvious lie is the idea that Poles and Indians are leaving. The vast, vast majority are staying. As with every immigrant group.
Of these one leaps out as different. Trump has tens of millions of loyal supporters in a free market liberal democracy with a free press.
But not a word of support on PB (me included) ever, while Trump is 5/2 with Hills to be the next POTUS.
is this because:
(a) the PB Overton window is actually quite small
(b) because nearly half the USA really are as authoritarian fascistlike as Putin and co and Trump's position resembles 1930s Germany
(c) something else. (What?)
You’re either in favour of drag sex shows in primary schools, or against a morning-after pill for a rape victim - with seemingly little in between.
Those who try to take a centrist or nuanced position, such as Tim Pool, get called far-right by the far-left.
But very negative.
Indeed it is a tactic to portray anyone with genuine concerns about large scale migration, such as inadequate house building, infrastructure and support, as being "racist". You are the other side of the coin.
Bringing nothing to the table. Best ignored.
Some of the replies..
We will be having this argument for years to come of course. And it will not be me that is living in an alternative reality but those who pretend what might have been.
I was was, and I suspect many of us were, as wrong in my job I would not last that long.
The latest fad is to make something quick and dirty, then fix the bugs as the customers report them. As someone who used to test software - before it got near a customer - for a living, that’s quite the transition.
FFS. They are so transparent.
BREAKING: A European study has found COVID vaccines could be causing ‘long-term brain damage.’
Some on here that may apply to.
https://twitter.com/LeadingReport/status/1656240739326590976?s=20
https://twitter.com/realstewpeters/status/1656352507273048078?s=20
By the end of this year, more probably the beginning of next, we might get back to our first real interest rate in the best part of a decade but by then I expect wages to be rising in real terms as well making that affordable and keeping demand relatively strong. The electoral cycle is also likely to result in more government boosting until late 2024.
2025 is harder to predict at this point but it seems unlikely that an incoming Labour government's first steps will be to significantly tighten the purse strings.
https://twitter.com/liz_churchill9/status/1656064697869774850?s=20
Your "anywhere they are needed" bit is also nonsense as there are a range of sites in any given area that will be suitable. What you're really saying is that mobile phone networks should be allowed to go for the cheapest available site in any given area.
Look, I've nothing hugely against these things and they are dotted on various taller buildings and generate some income for sports clubs who have one next to or on the clubhouse for example. But in terms of the genuine problems we have with the planning system go, occasionally blocking a mobile phone mast site is low on the list of concerns.
That would make inflation 5% or so.
So to keep up with prices in April 2022 in April 2024 you need to have a 16.5% pay increase (random months picked but I have a contract renewal pending and it's nice to work out what increase I need).
The Bank of England doesn't have access to a crystal ball that is denied to everyone else. They employ capable economists and put a lot of effort into their forecasts, but aren't the only ones doing so, and the accuracy of their predictions varies.
https://twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1656633101773074433
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1656631600996548609
The next one needs to be a little more intelligent than the last few though.
They close down all the nearest roads, including Fifth Avenue, and it’s an absolute nightmare.
Thank goodness London doesn’t half close down just because Rishi wants to go to Wimbledon or something.
In the mid 1980s under BR there were around 650 million passenger journeys a year. In 2018 just prior to the pandemic there were 1.8 billion passenger journies a year. Almost a 3 fold increase. And railways share of total travel has doubled since privatisation. In spite of this we also have the safest railways in Europe - and far safer than they were prior to privatisation. And punctuality is almost exactly the same as it was pre-privatisation at around 90%.
Point taken re Pacers.
But both of you are using what happened in much more recent years to 'disprove' what BR would have done if it had been kept in state control. Simply not on, logically. Edit: though, by the same logic, I can't prove you are wrong!
And the combination of private firms plus DfT has been lethal in many ways. From the Railtrack disaster to the chaos of electrification.
Now I do think their forecast is utterly wrong but there is a risk involved if energy prices don't return to something like 2021 levels...
Mind you fixing Diesel prices where Asda have stopped acting as the low price setter would solve some of the issues.