In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
Elon Musk, defender of free speech. Not.
Given the choice of either respecting Turkish law, or being banned in Turkey, what’s he supposed to do?
Beam Twitter in directly via his Starlink satellites and tell the Turkish government to foxtrot alpha.
Starlink has the same problem, in that it needs to downlink to local internet providers, who have their own government censorship issues.
IIRC, weren't there small aerials you could buy to pick up satellite internet links directly without an intermediary?
He should really go proper Bond villain (if he hasn't already). If he gave out such aerials free to the consumer then he would have the stranglehold on all tweets, and eventually all phone-based communication. Didn't satellite telly do something like that in the 90's with dishes/set-top boxes?
The problem is that Starlink isn’t his main business, and he doesn’t want countries to ban imports of Tesla cars off the back of problems with Twitter.
He has $450 billion and owns Twitter. If Turkey banned Tesla, how long do you think it would take before he could engineer a coup?
D'y'know, the more I think of it, the more I think that...y'know, he really could do it...
Sammy Allardiche once again weaves his magic at Leeds. His teams are hard to beat.
Isn't this the problem with English football? The most successful coaches are bereft of imagination, style and flair.
Why might this be? My own personal view is something deeper rooted in English culture. People with such qualities wouldn't dream of managing others but insist on treading their own path.
English football has the best league in the world and one of the top 4 international teams in the world. Sure it has problems but plenty of very good coaches now at all levels, in a way that there was not twenty years ago.
Why? We embraced immigration of people and new ideas, after decades of battling it and restricting the number of foreigners.
Doesn't this just sum up what is wrong?
The answer to everything is getting foreigners to do it. As for top 4 international side - they haven't won anything for 60 years. No English manager has won the League in 30 years and precious few have had success abroad. However none of this matters as there'll always be foreigners to do things for us.
Maybe there are now actually good quality English coaches. We'll see, not many have made it to the top yet. The Premier League being the best in the world is due to money. Probably the global interest resulting from language and legacy of empire.
It's hard to see in what respect Englosh football is 'better' than it was in, say, the late 80s/early 90s. I'd swap the overpriced, sugar-coated confection we have now for the affordable authenticity of those days in a heartbeat. I suspect most would do the same.
I'm of a generation where I might agree with you on some of that. But the reality beyond our personal tastes is far fewer people went to watch football in the 80s than do now, despite the price rises. So the data says most would not swap.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
If the Greens hadn't condemned "austerity", perhaps you might have a point.
But really the Greens are so peripheral, aren't they? If that's the best argument you can come up with in support of this certifiably insance idea that "almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition" were not in support of growth, that tells us something.
There’s no evidence that most politicians are pro-growth, and much evidence to the contrary.
Oh, all politicians are pro-growth. Just so long as
- there is no horrid factories or building near them - the politicians get to pick the winners. - etc
That this adds up to an anti-growth agenda is someone else’s fault.
Seems like Russian air defence is working effectively, they just took down a plane and 2 helicopters.
Seems to be two planes and two helicopters. Naturally some Russians believe that this is a sign that F-16s are already in Ukraine. I'm sure Dura will explain why this couldn't be done with F-16s.
"🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker @UAWeapons One of the worst days ever for the Russian Air Force: Today, at least 4 aircraft- an Su-34 strike jet, an Su-35 fighter and two Mi-8 helicopters, were shot down by anti-air missiles over Bryansk Oblast within Russia.
So far it is unclear what kind of missiles were used."
For all the apparent dragging their feet early on, Germany appears to have performed a very significant shift from its pre-22 invasion position and are not messing about with the support they are providing. Well done them.
Talking of travels. Just had my fourth free mojito in Hurghada
What's the food with whitish cuboids on the table?
Some weird Caesar salad bollocks
I’m reviewing a fairly generic 5 star on the Red Sea Coast. It’s all extremely forgettable, including the food
However I’m with a hilarious bunch of British journalists. All at least 20 years younger than me and maybe slightly naive in these matters. So I’m having fun teaching them “Yes you really can drink as much as you like and it’s all free”
Sammy Allardiche once again weaves his magic at Leeds. His teams are hard to beat.
Isn't this the problem with English football? The most successful coaches are bereft of imagination, style and flair.
Why might this be? My own personal view is something deeper rooted in English culture. People with such qualities wouldn't dream of managing others but insist on treading their own path.
English football has the best league in the world and one of the top 4 international teams in the world. Sure it has problems but plenty of very good coaches now at all levels, in a way that there was not twenty years ago.
Why? We embraced immigration of people and new ideas, after decades of battling it and restricting the number of foreigners.
Doesn't this just sum up what is wrong?
The answer to everything is getting foreigners to do it. As for top 4 international side - they haven't won anything for 60 years. No English manager has won the League in 30 years and precious few have had success abroad. However none of this matters as there'll always be foreigners to do things for us.
Maybe there are now actually good quality English coaches. We'll see, not many have made it to the top yet. The Premier League being the best in the world is due to money. Probably the global interest resulting from language and legacy of empire.
It's hard to see in what respect Englosh football is 'better' than it was in, say, the late 80s/early 90s. I'd swap the overpriced, sugar-coated confection we have now for the affordable authenticity of those days in a heartbeat. I suspect most would do the same.
I post this from time to time - but watch this and tell me whether what he have today or what we had then is better. https://youtu.be/WCm3bS6wXvk
It looks like football but not in HD. The game is remarkably unchanged.
One of the more obvious changes is that no one on that video is rolling around in agony because someone brushed past them.
Sammy Allardiche once again weaves his magic at Leeds. His teams are hard to beat.
Isn't this the problem with English football? The most successful coaches are bereft of imagination, style and flair.
Why might this be? My own personal view is something deeper rooted in English culture. People with such qualities wouldn't dream of managing others but insist on treading their own path.
English football has the best league in the world and one of the top 4 international teams in the world. Sure it has problems but plenty of very good coaches now at all levels, in a way that there was not twenty years ago.
Why? We embraced immigration of people and new ideas, after decades of battling it and restricting the number of foreigners.
Doesn't this just sum up what is wrong?
The answer to everything is getting foreigners to do it. As for top 4 international side - they haven't won anything for 60 years. No English manager has won the League in 30 years and precious few have had success abroad. However none of this matters as there'll always be foreigners to do things for us.
Maybe there are now actually good quality English coaches. We'll see, not many have made it to the top yet. The Premier League being the best in the world is due to money. Probably the global interest resulting from language and legacy of empire.
It's hard to see in what respect Englosh football is 'better' than it was in, say, the late 80s/early 90s. I'd swap the overpriced, sugar-coated confection we have now for the affordable authenticity of those days in a heartbeat. I suspect most would do the same.
My feelings are much the same about the 1970s - following Arsenal, then my local team. But when I pause and think about the casual and not so casual racism of crowds in the 1970s and 1980s it is shameful.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
Do the Scottish Greens actually care about anything other than gender?
Presumably not since it is that issue, in part, which has led to them criticising the English and Welsh Greens. Who I'm sure are just hard right troglydites or something.
Weirdly obsessed by the environment, that sort of thing.
In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
Elon Musk, defender of free speech. Not.
Given the choice of either respecting Turkish law, or being banned in Turkey, what’s he supposed to do?
Beam Twitter in directly via his Starlink satellites and tell the Turkish government to foxtrot alpha.
Starlink has the same problem, in that it needs to downlink to local internet providers, who have their own government censorship issues.
IIRC, weren't there small aerials you could buy to pick up satellite internet links directly without an intermediary?
He should really go proper Bond villain (if he hasn't already). If he gave out such aerials free to the consumer then he would have the stranglehold on all tweets, and eventually all phone-based communication. Didn't satellite telly do something like that in the 90's with dishes/set-top boxes?
The problem is that Starlink isn’t his main business, and he doesn’t want countries to ban imports of Tesla cars off the back of problems with Twitter.
He has $450 billion and owns Twitter. If Turkey banned Tesla, how long do you think it would take before he could engineer a coup?
D'y'know, the more I think of it, the more I think that...y'know, he really could do it...
Making Starlink active in a country without getting that countries permission is a violation of ITU rules and could result in penalties. Which is why Starlink is only available in countries that have given explicit legal permission to operate. Except one country.
Activating it in Iran, for use by protestors, only went ahead after some complex legal work by the US government.
This isn’t necessarily to do with needing downlinks. Though a number of countries are mandating that Starlink for their territory downlinks within their borders and connects to the local internet. So the country in question can have control of the content.
Starlink is increasingly using laser links on the satellite to bounce the signals round the world. Which means in theory they won’t need a local downlink, soon.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
There’s an argument you can’t really assess her after only a few weeks, and she wasn’t given a chance.
She would have enthused the Tory base and voters with her proper Toryism. She stood up to leaky Sue and sacked her.
There’s an argument Truss wasn’t doing any harm.
an argument refuted by real world events. Remember she was wandering around doped-up on gods know what for the last few weeks of her time in charge.
“an argument refuted by real world events”
You have a bent and ignorant view of what actually happened. On PB we like to stick to true history of politics and economics, which is why it’s a blessing I post here. The mini budget did not create a problem needing an intervention in the market. The intervention didn’t cost anything anyway, but that’s not the point - the mini budget didn’t cause a problem.
fact it was not not only Tory haters who wanted to present Truss as bungling, many Tory MPs who preferred Sunak were happy to join in with the enemy! the economic arguments Labour and Tory used to attack Truss mini budget was bullshit. And blue on blue with these LIES left the Tory polling where it is today, it was Sunak and supporters who created the poll drop trashing the Tory brand.
The mini budget was politically unpopular, but was replaced by Sunak doing nothing to create growth. Just finger hope for the best growth in years up to the General Election, and that could really be letting the Tory Party down in coming election.
£65 billion is notional amount Bank of England willing to commit to buy UK government bonds (gilts) to stabilise market in the wake of mini-Budget. what actually happened, rise in gilt yields was exacerbated by the increased use of liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies by some pension funds, triggered spiral of margin calls and forced gilt sales driving up yields further.
the mini-Budget CANNOT be blamed for the sustained increase in mortgage interest rates when mortgage rates (and mortgage spreads) also surged in many other countries including US. It all started when Sunak was chancellor.
UK regulators should have been on top of pension issue, this weakness already in the market, The mini budget did not create the problem, it flushed out a problem already there. That’s why Labour and Sunak’s attack was actually lies and bulls hit, This problem NOT CREATED by the mini budget, was older, the interplay of leverage, liquidity risk and interconnectedness under weak regulatory regimes is more Sunak’s fault considering his longer time as chancellor of our country than Kwarteng or Truss, who merely flushed out Sunak’s crap supervision of the economy.
Those of us on PB who are not here to spin, but maintain true history, don’t have to repeat lies and tropes do we?
Why is this important to political betting? Because lying about what happened, what problem actually was, how created (where was risk management, where was supervision under Sunak and BOE) does not learn lessons. So let’s see what increase in interest rates may have on some other pockets of vulnerabilities in the UK financial sector - because ironically for Sunak, any second now other problems in the NBFI sector, affecting financial stability and the fight against inflation, can rip up his and his governments credibility.
And that truly would be hoisted on own petard.
8 paragraphs to defend the indefensible. Why do you bother? Sterling was plunging within minutes of the mini budget being announced.
The budget was so dumb we saw through it immediately on PB. It was a WTF moment.
Politically it jarred. But maybe that change is needed for our country at some point. But I just took apart your ignorance about the economic attack on it. I’d rather go back to where you are now, actually believing it did create mayhem and Truss crashed the economy. But that is not true, it’s ignorance to continue to believe it.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
There’s an argument you can’t really assess her after only a few weeks, and she wasn’t given a chance.
She would have enthused the Tory base and voters with her proper Toryism. She stood up to leaky Sue and sacked her.
There’s an argument Truss wasn’t doing any harm.
an argument refuted by real world events. Remember she was wandering around doped-up on gods know what for the last few weeks of her time in charge.
“an argument refuted by real world events”
You have a bent and ignorant view of what actually happened. On PB we like to stick to true history of politics and economics, which is why it’s a blessing I post here. The mini budget did not create a problem needing an intervention in the market. The intervention didn’t cost anything anyway, but that’s not the point - the mini budget didn’t cause a problem.
fact it was not not only Tory haters who wanted to present Truss as bungling, many Tory MPs who preferred Sunak were happy to join in with the enemy! the economic arguments Labour and Tory used to attack Truss mini budget was bullshit. And blue on blue with these LIES left the Tory polling where it is today, it was Sunak and supporters who created the poll drop trashing the Tory brand.
The mini budget was politically unpopular, but was replaced by Sunak doing nothing to create growth. Just finger hope for the best growth in years up to the General Election, and that could really be letting the Tory Party down in coming election.
£65 billion is notional amount Bank of England willing to commit to buy UK government bonds (gilts) to stabilise market in the wake of mini-Budget. what actually happened, rise in gilt yields was exacerbated by the increased use of liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies by some pension funds, triggered spiral of margin calls and forced gilt sales driving up yields further.
the mini-Budget CANNOT be blamed for the sustained increase in mortgage interest rates when mortgage rates (and mortgage spreads) also surged in many other countries including US. It all started when Sunak was chancellor.
UK regulators should have been on top of pension issue, this weakness already in the market, The mini budget did not create the problem, it flushed out a problem already there. That’s why Labour and Sunak’s attack was actually lies and bulls hit, This problem NOT CREATED by the mini budget, was older, the interplay of leverage, liquidity risk and interconnectedness under weak regulatory regimes is more Sunak’s fault considering his longer time as chancellor of our country than Kwarteng or Truss, who merely flushed out Sunak’s crap supervision of the economy.
Those of us on PB who are not here to spin, but maintain true history, don’t have to repeat lies and tropes do we?
Why is this important to political betting? Because lying about what happened, what problem actually was, how created (where was risk management, where was supervision under Sunak and BOE) does not learn lessons. So let’s see what increase in interest rates may have on some other pockets of vulnerabilities in the UK financial sector - because ironically for Sunak, any second now other problems in the NBFI sector, affecting financial stability and the fight against inflation, can rip up his and his governments credibility.
And that truly would be hoisted on own petard.
8 paragraphs to defend the indefensible. Why do you bother? Sterling was plunging within minutes of the mini budget being announced.
The budget was so dumb we saw through it immediately on PB. It was a WTF moment.
Politically it jarred. But maybe that change is needed for our country at some point. But I just took apart your ignorance about the economic attack on it. I’d rather go back to where you are now, actually believing it did create mayhem and Truss crashed the economy. But that is not true, it’s ignorance to continue to believe it.
If we need change it's the job of politicians to make us realise that and support it. Not put out a half baked idea then whinge when people raised questions about it, and being entirely unprepared to answer them.
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
Who in gods land of holy fuck would pay £1000 a year for the telegraph
That is the next question. As Matt is available free on Twitter I wouldn't pay £1 a year to use it as cat litter.
But in 1966 you could read Peter Simple - beyond price - four times a week for a few pennies.
I still laugh that Matt Pritchett gets paid more than the editor, and the publisher has made it clear to the editor that losing Matt would be a resigning issue. Oh, and he has standing offers from the Mail and the Sun.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
Do the Scottish Greens actually care about anything other than gender?
Presumably not since it is that issue, in part, which has led to them criticising the English and Welsh Greens. Who I'm sure are just hard right troglydites or something.
Weirdly obsessed by the environment, that sort of thing.
They've hit on a winning formula - tie it to NIMYism - they could sweep a lot more councils
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
Who in gods land of holy fuck would pay £1000 a year for the telegraph
That is the next question. As Matt is available free on Twitter I wouldn't pay £1 a year to use it as cat litter.
But in 1966 you could read Peter Simple - beyond price - four times a week for a few pennies.
Just occasionally my wife and I have to buy postage stamps. A first class one is around £1. When we used to exchange messages of undying devotion in our early 20’s they were about 4 old pence!
A propos of nothing I’m on a little car trip from my French house and ticking off the villages. Just bought a few bottles from the eccentric Chateau in Savigny-Les-Beaune where there’s a huge outdoor collection of warplanes covering several hectares.
In the course of about 45 mins I’ll be passing Aloxe Corton, Monthelie, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault and Puligny Montrachet. Before carrying on down via Rully, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny. It’s like a viticultural Hollywood walk of fame.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
There’s an argument you can’t really assess her after only a few weeks, and she wasn’t given a chance.
She would have enthused the Tory base and voters with her proper Toryism. She stood up to leaky Sue and sacked her.
There’s an argument Truss wasn’t doing any harm.
an argument refuted by real world events. Remember she was wandering around doped-up on gods know what for the last few weeks of her time in charge.
“an argument refuted by real world events”
You have a bent and ignorant view of what actually happened. On PB we like to stick to true history of politics and economics, which is why it’s a blessing I post here. The mini budget did not create a problem needing an intervention in the market. The intervention didn’t cost anything anyway, but that’s not the point - the mini budget didn’t cause a problem.
fact it was not not only Tory haters who wanted to present Truss as bungling, many Tory MPs who preferred Sunak were happy to join in with the enemy! the economic arguments Labour and Tory used to attack Truss mini budget was bullshit. And blue on blue with these LIES left the Tory polling where it is today, it was Sunak and supporters who created the poll drop trashing the Tory brand.
The mini budget was politically unpopular, but was replaced by Sunak doing nothing to create growth. Just finger hope for the best growth in years up to the General Election, and that could really be letting the Tory Party down in coming election.
£65 billion is notional amount Bank of England willing to commit to buy UK government bonds (gilts) to stabilise market in the wake of mini-Budget. what actually happened, rise in gilt yields was exacerbated by the increased use of liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies by some pension funds, triggered spiral of margin calls and forced gilt sales driving up yields further.
the mini-Budget CANNOT be blamed for the sustained increase in mortgage interest rates when mortgage rates (and mortgage spreads) also surged in many other countries including US. It all started when Sunak was chancellor.
UK regulators should have been on top of pension issue, this weakness already in the market, The mini budget did not create the problem, it flushed out a problem already there. That’s why Labour and Sunak’s attack was actually lies and bulls hit, This problem NOT CREATED by the mini budget, was older, the interplay of leverage, liquidity risk and interconnectedness under weak regulatory regimes is more Sunak’s fault considering his longer time as chancellor of our country than Kwarteng or Truss, who merely flushed out Sunak’s crap supervision of the economy.
Those of us on PB who are not here to spin, but maintain true history, don’t have to repeat lies and tropes do we?
Why is this important to political betting? Because lying about what happened, what problem actually was, how created (where was risk management, where was supervision under Sunak and BOE) does not learn lessons. So let’s see what increase in interest rates may have on some other pockets of vulnerabilities in the UK financial sector - because ironically for Sunak, any second now other problems in the NBFI sector, affecting financial stability and the fight against inflation, can rip up his and his governments credibility.
And that truly would be hoisted on own petard.
8 paragraphs to defend the indefensible. Why do you bother? Sterling was plunging within minutes of the mini budget being announced.
The budget was so dumb we saw through it immediately on PB. It was a WTF moment.
Politically it jarred. But maybe that change is needed for our country at some point. But I just took apart your ignorance about the economic attack on it. I’d rather go back to where you are now, actually believing it did create mayhem and Truss crashed the economy. But that is not true, it’s ignorance to continue to believe it.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
Do the Scottish Greens actually care about anything other than gender?
Presumably not since it is that issue, in part, which has led to them criticising the English and Welsh Greens. Who I'm sure are just hard right troglydites or something.
Weirdly obsessed by the environment, that sort of thing.
They've hit on a winning formula - tie it to NIMYism - they could sweep a lot more councils
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
Who in gods land of holy fuck would pay £1000 a year for the telegraph
That's £3 a day. Blimey.
It's the doom loop that all but killed local papers a while back. The internet disturbed the model, so papers had to charge more to deliver less. So sales fell and so on.
I'm of an age and background where I buy the Romford Recorder, but only about 10000 others do the same. No wonder they can't afford to make it any good.
The thing is that, for all we get stuff free of the net, we're going to miss proper paid-for newspapers when they go.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
There’s an argument you can’t really assess her after only a few weeks, and she wasn’t given a chance.
She would have enthused the Tory base and voters with her proper Toryism. She stood up to leaky Sue and sacked her.
There’s an argument Truss wasn’t doing any harm.
an argument refuted by real world events. Remember she was wandering around doped-up on gods know what for the last few weeks of her time in charge.
“an argument refuted by real world events”
You have a bent and ignorant view of what actually happened. On PB we like to stick to true history of politics and economics, which is why it’s a blessing I post here. The mini budget did not create a problem needing an intervention in the market. The intervention didn’t cost anything anyway, but that’s not the point - the mini budget didn’t cause a problem.
fact it was not not only Tory haters who wanted to present Truss as bungling, many Tory MPs who preferred Sunak were happy to join in with the enemy! the economic arguments Labour and Tory used to attack Truss mini budget was bullshit. And blue on blue with these LIES left the Tory polling where it is today, it was Sunak and supporters who created the poll drop trashing the Tory brand.
The mini budget was politically unpopular, but was replaced by Sunak doing nothing to create growth. Just finger hope for the best growth in years up to the General Election, and that could really be letting the Tory Party down in coming election.
£65 billion is notional amount Bank of England willing to commit to buy UK government bonds (gilts) to stabilise market in the wake of mini-Budget. what actually happened, rise in gilt yields was exacerbated by the increased use of liability-driven investment (LDI) strategies by some pension funds, triggered spiral of margin calls and forced gilt sales driving up yields further.
the mini-Budget CANNOT be blamed for the sustained increase in mortgage interest rates when mortgage rates (and mortgage spreads) also surged in many other countries including US. It all started when Sunak was chancellor.
UK regulators should have been on top of pension issue, this weakness already in the market, The mini budget did not create the problem, it flushed out a problem already there. That’s why Labour and Sunak’s attack was actually lies and bulls hit, This problem NOT CREATED by the mini budget, was older, the interplay of leverage, liquidity risk and interconnectedness under weak regulatory regimes is more Sunak’s fault considering his longer time as chancellor of our country than Kwarteng or Truss, who merely flushed out Sunak’s crap supervision of the economy.
Those of us on PB who are not here to spin, but maintain true history, don’t have to repeat lies and tropes do we?
Why is this important to political betting? Because lying about what happened, what problem actually was, how created (where was risk management, where was supervision under Sunak and BOE) does not learn lessons. So let’s see what increase in interest rates may have on some other pockets of vulnerabilities in the UK financial sector - because ironically for Sunak, any second now other problems in the NBFI sector, affecting financial stability and the fight against inflation, can rip up his and his governments credibility.
And that truly would be hoisted on own petard.
8 paragraphs to defend the indefensible. Why do you bother? Sterling was plunging within minutes of the mini budget being announced.
The budget was so dumb we saw through it immediately on PB. It was a WTF moment.
Politically it jarred. But maybe that change is needed for our country at some point. But I just took apart your ignorance about the economic attack on it. I’d rather go back to where you are now, actually believing it did create mayhem and Truss crashed the economy. But that is not true, it’s ignorance to continue to believe it.
If we need change it's the job of politicians to make us realise that and support it. Not put out a half baked idea then whinge when people raised questions about it, and being entirely unprepared to answer them.
There’s nothing in your 2 sentences I can disagree with, Kwarteng and Truss prepared no ground work, the budget measures came as some surprise, and both were abysmal communicators.
But it’s true there is nothing, zero, zilch in your 2 sentences to challenge the three economic fundamentals I laid out people lazily and ignorantly and politically blame Truss for
1) issue with currency pressure was global, not wholly the mini budget 2) issue with rates was global and predated Truss premiership 3) issue with pensions was not crated by mini budget, it predated mini budget, mini budget provoked the revelation of it - but if Sunak had won instead, the same problem was lurking there for him. Fact.
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
Sadly The Times have finally noticed, after about five years, that the £5/month "international subscription" I took out whilst on holiday in the USA is being abused. They have raised it to £15, which is still better than the £26 ordinary price. I threatened to cancel and got £7.50 for three months, but alas that trick doesn't work twice.
On a similar note, standard definition Netflix (£6.99) is now at a reasonable resolution for laptop / tablet viewing. If you don't use Netflix on a large screen, you can save £4 a month by downgrading.
Sammy Allardiche once again weaves his magic at Leeds. His teams are hard to beat.
Isn't this the problem with English football? The most successful coaches are bereft of imagination, style and flair.
Why might this be? My own personal view is something deeper rooted in English culture. People with such qualities wouldn't dream of managing others but insist on treading their own path.
English football has the best league in the world and one of the top 4 international teams in the world. Sure it has problems but plenty of very good coaches now at all levels, in a way that there was not twenty years ago.
Why? We embraced immigration of people and new ideas, after decades of battling it and restricting the number of foreigners.
Doesn't this just sum up what is wrong?
The answer to everything is getting foreigners to do it. As for top 4 international side - they haven't won anything for 60 years. No English manager has won the League in 30 years and precious few have had success abroad. However none of this matters as there'll always be foreigners to do things for us.
Maybe there are now actually good quality English coaches. We'll see, not many have made it to the top yet. The Premier League being the best in the world is due to money. Probably the global interest resulting from language and legacy of empire.
It's hard to see in what respect Englosh football is 'better' than it was in, say, the late 80s/early 90s. I'd swap the overpriced, sugar-coated confection we have now for the affordable authenticity of those days in a heartbeat. I suspect most would do the same.
I post this from time to time - but watch this and tell me whether what he have today or what we had then is better. https://youtu.be/WCm3bS6wXvk
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
Do the Scottish Greens actually care about anything other than gender?
Presumably not since it is that issue, in part, which has led to them criticising the English and Welsh Greens. Who I'm sure are just hard right troglydites or something.
Weirdly obsessed by the environment, that sort of thing.
They've hit on a winning formula - tie it to NIMYism - they could sweep a lot more councils
Not seen the banana one before.
They are the true evil. There are legitimte concerns to plenty of developments, especially when much of it is shoddily done and councils cannot afford to do any real enforcement action. Even stuff that really should get built can benefit from some raising of concerns to ensure genuine issues like flooding get addressed (though your average complainer will not understand the technicalities of how it is possible to address it).
But the BANANAs just use the same language as an excuse. They become easy to spot as for all their protestation of not being against building in the right place or right way, their passionate rejection never wavers no matter how much is done, and they fall back more and more on, essentially, that they just don't like it. It is most obvious with really big, strategic projects where the motivation is easier to spot, but it gets revealed often enough elsewhere.
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
Who in gods land of holy fuck would pay £1000 a year for the telegraph
That is the next question. As Matt is available free on Twitter I wouldn't pay £1 a year to use it as cat litter.
But in 1966 you could read Peter Simple - beyond price - four times a week for a few pennies.
Just occasionally my wife and I have to buy postage stamps. A first class one is around £1. When we used to exchange messages of undying devotion in our early 20’s they were about 4 old pence!
Yes, I remember stamps, now £1, going up from 3d to 4d. But the 4d Daily Telegraph (1966) is now £3.
A propos of nothing I’m on a little car trip from my French house and ticking off the villages. Just bought a few bottles from the eccentric Chateau in Savigny-Les-Beaune where there’s a huge outdoor collection of warplanes covering several hectares.
In the course of about 45 mins I’ll be passing Aloxe Corton, Monthelie, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault and Puligny Montrachet. Before carrying on down via Rully, Mercurey, Givry and Montagny. It’s like a viticultural Hollywood walk of fame.
The photo was I think domaine leflaive, whose Montrachet grand cru 2017 retails at an affordable £27,000 per bottle.
But they all share the same 8 hectare field. The other side of the road is the downright cheap Batard Montrachet vineyard (Leflaive prices c.1.5-3k per bottle) and above is Chevalier Montrachet (similar prices).
The whole thing is an expression of the madness of the edge cases of globalisation. It’s the 0.0001% mirror of the child sleeping in a box under a railway embankment in Dhaka.
Yet it’s all bizarrely understated and modest looking. No fences, no security lights, no bling. Nothing even like the Bordeaux chateaux. And a few miles South in the Châlonnaise where I stopped off at the Cave Coop of Bissey you can buy decent Bourgogne rouge and blanc for €7 a bottle.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
Radicals: Thatcher, Blair, Brown Conservatives: May, Cameron, Major Populists: Johnson, Truss Managers: Sunak, Callaghan
Hard to say what various LoO might be or might have become once in office. Corbyn liked to think of himself as radical, but was very conservative albeit from an old skool left wing perspective.
Hmm... For a "populist" Truss was remarkably unpopular... 😂
You can be a crap populist. Boris ended up pretty unpopular.
He ended up unpopular but for most of his political career he was popular. I can't think of one moment where Truss has been popular... She just always came across as being as nutty as a fruitcake lol...
Truss was prepared to be unpopular; she said so many times - presumably her idea was that when her policies resulted in economic growth, she would become popular enough to win a GE on her record. That was always wildly ambitious, and perhaps to even attempt it was nutty, though I find it faintly heroic. I'm not sure why it's making you 'lol' so much though, given that she's been replaced by someone who isn't trying to make the economy grow at all (the opposite seems to be the case, unless he's just plain thick as shit), and frankly doesn't seem to be trying to make a decent fist of the General Election either.
I'm sorry - I can't help being curious, because you seem to be pretty much the only person on earth who can't see what an unmitigated disaster Liz Truss was.
Please relieve my curiosity and tell me whether it's a sexual thing or what?
Liz, despite being loony, got one big thing right. Britain needs to grow.
This sounds incredibly obvious, but it seems that it’s a truth that evades almost all of the governing party and likely most of the Opposition.
Right. That would be why economic growth is the unquestioned mantra of every elected politician in this country.
It really isn’t.
It is so.
Green Party is a sufficient counterexample, in at least one important sense of 'economic growth' - which they do question, at least in its nature.
Edit: and add the Scottish Green Party, too. That's two parties.
Do the Scottish Greens actually care about anything other than gender?
Presumably not since it is that issue, in part, which has led to them criticising the English and Welsh Greens. Who I'm sure are just hard right troglydites or something.
Weirdly obsessed by the environment, that sort of thing.
They've hit on a winning formula - tie it to NIMYism - they could sweep a lot more councils
Not seen the banana one before.
They are the true evil. There are legitimte concerns to plenty of developments, especially when much of it is shoddily done and councils cannot afford to do any real enforcement action. Even stuff that really should get built can benefit from some raising of concerns to ensure genuine issues like flooding get addressed (though your average complainer will not understand the technicalities of how it is possible to address it).
But the BANANAs just use the same language as an excuse. They become easy to spot as for all their protestation of not being against building in the right place or right way, their passionate rejection never wavers no matter how much is done, and they fall back more and more on, essentially, that they just don't like it. It is most obvious with really big, strategic projects where the motivation is easier to spot, but it gets revealed often enough elsewhere.
It’s an incredibly powerful force, and lobby, that seems to exist everywhere there are homeowners. Even on my street in tatty inner London there is uproar every time someone puts in an application to develop a mews house. I dare not pipe up on the local WhatsApp for fear of a pile on.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Each to their own. I personally find the idea use of the flag is often sinister to be bizarre, and whilst it can be amusing to note the use of flags next to or behind politicians (and I've had plenty of fun mocking very manufactured political imagery) and the like the 'flag shagging' complaints generally appear to be the more hysterical reaction, you'd think any use of a flag was akin to fascism the way some people react oneline.
You look at most national leaders or diplomatic events and there's flags all over the place, it is pretty normal imagery, so if people don't personally like it being flown about the place then fine, that's their preference, but from my own position I just don't see it as a big deal.
Conservative just means you're cautious and a bit suspicious of change, and only want to do so if you have to, and then to do so gradually. If it ain't broke dont fix it.
Of course, that in itself is reason enough why plenty of people don't like them.
The other point of view is that many people don't like change and taking this approach to Government allows for stability, consistency, broad peace, preservation of tradition/ what works, predictability and thus extra space economic growth, and stops silly ideas and radical dogma that's poorly thought through from being put into practice.
Which is why Brexit has pissed off so many natural Conservatives. Totally silly idea with radical dogma and poorly thought through.
The Conservatives won't recover until they repent of Brexitism.
I knew someone would respond (in seconds) with Brexit.
That conflicted across the principle because many Conservatives thought it was riskier to stay because of the radical change that they felt would inevitably come, which was also against their values. If you believe in conserving national sovereignty and independence, and not steadily creeping towards a federal Europe, you won't have had a problem with this.
Too many seem to miss this and focus just on the economic disruption, more often than not because they themselves aren't Conservatives.
The only unConservative bit, in my view, was in the response to the vote itself, which became too dogmatic.
Well, Brexit and its economic consequences is why the Red Wall thinks this government has failed, and why the Blue Wall hates it too.
Brexit is the political monkeys paw. You get what you wish for and regret it very quickly.
Not quickly enough, though.
But yes, at some point the Conservatives stopped being conservative. Incremental change, think in generations, work out why the fence was put up before you tear it down, that sort of thing. It's not just about Brexit, for all that is totemic. (After all, a conservative approach to being Eurosceptic would have been to take Dave's deal and set it in concrete. It probably would have stuck.)
And then there's Starmer's speech today (there's a link here; https://twitter.com/SpaJw/status/1657353519165321216). Large chunks of it read like the sort of thing that a One Nation Tory of previous generations- Iain Macleod, say, could have said. But it's really hard to see who is standing up for this sort of thing in the current setup.
What was the "conservative" option to disengage with the EU given it had taken a "conservative" attitude to steadily ratcheting up integration over several decades to arrive at such a decidedly objectionable position to so many Conservatives?
The rather bleak answer is that (IIRC) when Jean-Claude Juncker offered to David Cameron that the UK be moved to a newly-made up outer rim position, giving the UK much if not all of what it wanted, Cameron said no. Cameron thought he could keep UK at the heart of Europe. And seven years later here we are...
I remain to be convinced that actually happened, although I can fully believe Cameron's response if it did.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
It's not evil, but it's terribly gauche. Like having a discarded washing machine in your garden or those awful dog ornaments.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Each to their own. I personally find the idea use of the flag is often sinister to be bizarre, and whilst it can be amusing to note the use of flags next to or behind politicians (and I've had plenty of fun mocking very manufactured political imagery) and the like the 'flag shagging' complaints generally appear to be the more hysterical reaction, you'd think any use of a flag was akin to fascism the way some people react oneline.
You look at most national leaders or diplomatic events and there's flags all over the place, it is pretty normal imagery, so if people don't personally like it being flown about the place then fine, that's their preference, but from my own position I just don't see it as a big deal.
I’ve long held a theory, which could be bollocks, that the British don’t get overly excited about the flag because there is a combination of very rarely being genuinely threatened by invasion and national confidence from empire which has over-ridden any memories of the greatest threat of invasion in WW2.
I used to notice clearly how when I went to school in the UK how few Union Flags I saw. Coming from Jersey you would see them everywhere but very rarely in the UK. Over time I figured that when you come from somewhere vulnerable or on the “edge” you cling to the symbols that indicate freedom or a culture much more strongly and visibly.
Somewhere that is “British” such as Jersey has constantly been invaded by the French, occasionally Spaniards and of course the Germans. Even the old architecture developed as it did because wooden building would just be burnt by French raids. Throughout history somewhere like Jersey has relied on the British army and Navy to protect it and fight alongside the militia to keep the place British and not French.
So in these places, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, the Falklands and so on the flag means more than some jingoistic statement it’s an acknowledgement of safety and an age old fear that Britain protected from.
If you are a country that’s been invaded a lot or gained independence then the flag again symbolises a freedom. People in Britain don’t really have that inbuilt sense of threat and fragility of their existence and so the flag doesn’t represent something that’s been hard won.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
But the need to display the flag that prominently does indicate an insecure need to define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that can be manipulated in dangerous ways.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
But the need to display the flag that prominently does indicate an insecure need to define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that can be manipulated in dangerous ways.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
There are a few of us who don't need an "us" and a "them" to feel good about ourselves. And we're much better people than those who do...
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
But the need to display the flag that prominently does indicate an insecure need to define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that can be manipulated in dangerous ways.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
Many things are worth worrying about for where they could lead, but that doesn't mean we should overly worry at the first hint.
One flag in the garden does not signify someone in imminent danger of nationalist manipulation. If anything, getting worried by the mere flying of a flag as if there is a major risk that it signifies such a thing seems counterproductive to me. It's not like the infamous Emily Thorberry house in terms of 'That's a bit excessive'. Most people don't fly, I don't, but I don't think most people would assume that level is something to worry about.
Unless it was an English flag. I know several people who say if they see an English flag they assume the person flying it is racist. Sadly it's reputation is pretty shot with some.
That can run its own services rather than paying the Germans to do it for us.
That might be a fruitful line for Keir Starmer to take: "End French and German ownership of our public services!"
William I have been saying it for years, this would be a great line for SKS to take. The politics are strong.
It's the rare combination of being a policy that would be popular, and something the Tories wouldn't nick
"Do you believe the French should run our railways? Rishi Sunak does."
It writes itself.
A Third Way on Xenophobia. Even New Labour never managed that.
There's no such thing as xenophobia anymore. The politically correct term is "legitimate concerns"
Better than French or Germans (because a significant proportion of voters would think that sounds good - more reliable than British) what about just lying, Boris style.
“Do you think the Russians should run our railways? Rishi Sunak does.”
Or if the side-of-bus-style blatant lie doesn’t appeal, the subtler not actually a lie but devious:
“Do you think rich Russian donors to the Tory party with links to the Kremlin should run our railways? Labour doesn’t.”
The British invented the train. And yet we now rely on the French to run our railways.
We once again must have confidence in ourselves, to have agency and control over our own lives. Here in the UK. This is a great country, we can once again do great things. The Tories believe Britain is better ruled from abroad, Labour thinks we have a lot more to offer here.
Parties will always be coalitions of a sort, but it feels to me that when you have organised factions be they ERG or TRG or whoever it just encourages feuding of a more dangerous kind.
That can run its own services rather than paying the Germans to do it for us.
That might be a fruitful line for Keir Starmer to take: "End French and German ownership of our public services!"
William I have been saying it for years, this would be a great line for SKS to take. The politics are strong.
It's the rare combination of being a policy that would be popular, and something the Tories wouldn't nick
"Do you believe the French should run our railways? Rishi Sunak does."
It writes itself.
A Third Way on Xenophobia. Even New Labour never managed that.
There's no such thing as xenophobia anymore. The politically correct term is "legitimate concerns"
Better than French or Germans (because a significant proportion of voters would think that sounds good - more reliable than British) what about just lying, Boris style.
“Do you think the Russians should run our railways? Rishi Sunak does.”
Or if the side-of-bus-style blatant lie doesn’t appeal, the subtler not actually a lie but devious:
“Do you think rich Russian donors to the Tory party with links to the Kremlin should run our railways? Labour doesn’t.”
Just imagine the howls of indignation from the Express and Mail!
Parties will always be coalitions of a sort, but it feels to me that when you have organised factions be they ERG or TRG or whoever it just encourages feuding of a more dangerous kind.
Strong, 'no true Conservative' vibes.
The Tory Party is out of ideas and is fracturing at the middle.
Conservative just means you're cautious and a bit suspicious of change, and only want to do so if you have to, and then to do so gradually. If it ain't broke dont fix it.
Of course, that in itself is reason enough why plenty of people don't like them.
The other point of view is that many people don't like change and taking this approach to Government allows for stability, consistency, broad peace, preservation of tradition/ what works, predictability and thus extra space economic growth, and stops silly ideas and radical dogma that's poorly thought through from being put into practice.
Which is why Brexit has pissed off so many natural Conservatives. Totally silly idea with radical dogma and poorly thought through.
The Conservatives won't recover until they repent of Brexitism.
I knew someone would respond (in seconds) with Brexit.
That conflicted across the principle because many Conservatives thought it was riskier to stay because of the radical change that they felt would inevitably come, which was also against their values. If you believe in conserving national sovereignty and independence, and not steadily creeping towards a federal Europe, you won't have had a problem with this.
Too many seem to miss this and focus just on the economic disruption, more often than not because they themselves aren't Conservatives.
The only unConservative bit, in my view, was in the response to the vote itself, which became too dogmatic.
Well, Brexit and its economic consequences is why the Red Wall thinks this government has failed, and why the Blue Wall hates it too.
Brexit is the political monkeys paw. You get what you wish for and regret it very quickly.
Not quickly enough, though.
But yes, at some point the Conservatives stopped being conservative. Incremental change, think in generations, work out why the fence was put up before you tear it down, that sort of thing. It's not just about Brexit, for all that is totemic. (After all, a conservative approach to being Eurosceptic would have been to take Dave's deal and set it in concrete. It probably would have stuck.)
And then there's Starmer's speech today (there's a link here; https://twitter.com/SpaJw/status/1657353519165321216). Large chunks of it read like the sort of thing that a One Nation Tory of previous generations- Iain Macleod, say, could have said. But it's really hard to see who is standing up for this sort of thing in the current setup.
What was the "conservative" option to disengage with the EU given it had taken a "conservative" attitude to steadily ratcheting up integration over several decades to arrive at such a decidedly objectionable position to so many Conservatives?
The rather bleak answer is that (IIRC) when Jean-Claude Juncker offered to David Cameron that the UK be moved to a newly-made up outer rim position, giving the UK much if not all of what it wanted, Cameron said no. Cameron thought he could keep UK at the heart of Europe. And seven years later here we are...
I remain to be convinced that actually happened, although I can fully believe Cameron's response if it did.
Anyone have any actual evidence of this?
I believe it was a promise to look at it.
But Merkel wasn’t a fan of the idea so Cameron knew it would never happen
Since you all are discussing flags, I'll tell this story: Microsoft is within an easy bicycle ride, and recently Google set up a location a few blocks away. Microsoft flies the US and Washington state flags, though not ostentatiously; Google has one of those "rainbow" diversity symbols* at their main entrance.
When COVID vaccines became widely available, Microsoft volunteered an auditorium, and staffed it with volunteers. (They were so nice that, when I came back for my second shot (jab, if you prefer), I brought them packages of cookies and mint teas.)
Google did nothing for us, locally.
(*It is probably not there to celebrate the Noah story, and, I am nearly certain that Google's, comitment to "diversity" is, shall we say, incomplete.)
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
But the need to display the flag that prominently does indicate an insecure need to define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that can be manipulated in dangerous ways.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
Many things are worth worrying about for where they could lead, but that doesn't mean we should overly worry at the first hint.
One flag in the garden does not signify someone in imminent danger of nationalist manipulation. If anything, getting worried by the mere flying of a flag as if there is a major risk that it signifies such a thing seems counterproductive to me. It's not like the infamous Emily Thorberry house in terms of 'That's a bit excessive'. Most people don't fly, I don't, but I don't think most people would assume that level is something to worry about.
Unless it was an English flag. I know several people who say if they see an English flag they assume the person flying it is racist. Sadly it's reputation is pretty shot with some.
The classiest garden flag arrangement would be a sweep of flags lining the front garden wall, surrounding the driveway: UK, EU, various European flags, US, Canada, Japan, maybe the UN and NATO.
Or perhaps just a NATO flag. That would get some fun Twitter conspiracies going.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Absolutely. Nationalism, like religion, is fine in moderation: it is often a force for good and provides people with a sense of belonging, shared values and comfort. But it can also be a force for terrible evil when it gets out of hand.
Yes, it's terribly evil when Mrs. Biggins hoists one in her garden.
But the need to display the flag that prominently does indicate an insecure need to define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that can be manipulated in dangerous ways.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
Many things are worth worrying about for where they could lead, but that doesn't mean we should overly worry at the first hint.
One flag in the garden does not signify someone in imminent danger of nationalist manipulation. If anything, getting worried by the mere flying of a flag as if there is a major risk that it signifies such a thing seems counterproductive to me. It's not like the infamous Emily Thorberry house in terms of 'That's a bit excessive'. Most people don't fly, I don't, but I don't think most people would assume that level is something to worry about.
Unless it was an English flag. I know several people who say if they see an English flag they assume the person flying it is racist. Sadly it's reputation is pretty shot with some.
I have a theory. Flying flags is often a symbol of insecurity. Feelings of insecurity can be justifiable or not. The insecurity felt by people in, for example, Wales, is justified because it's on the back of a project of cultural annihilation that did not end until recent decades (e.g. the active suppression of the Welsh language). Anxiety about the continued existence of Wales is partially well-founded, so the flying of a Welsh flag is likely to be a benign symbol (though it might not be). The insecurity felt by people in England, is harder to justify (and, I believe, less commonplace). The flying of the English flag can also be benign but there's a stronger chance of it being the result of an anxiety borne of more sinister origins.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Welsh can also be racist and English flags are very often not flown with any sinister motive at all. But there's a different balance of probability given the context of the objective security and the differential histories, and those probabilities form a heuristic that lead to different responses in observers.
Some of us of a certain age are suspicious of demonstrative flag(s) waving in this country for historical reasons. There was a time, particularly in the 70s and 80s, when the national flag(s) were appropriated by two particular groups. Firstly, the far right - the NF and then BNP. And secondly, the English abroad - both misbehaving holidaymakers, and football supporters/hooligans. Although those connotations have diminished, they have not entirely faded.
Parties will always be coalitions of a sort, but it feels to me that when you have organised factions be they ERG or TRG or whoever it just encourages feuding of a more dangerous kind.
Strong, 'no true Conservative' vibes.
Politer than "why don't you just f@#£ off and join the Tories" but the same energy. And likely to end the same way.
I don't know, my train was 45 minutes late on Tuesday and cost £60 for a return, is that better than it was in the past? Really?
Did you actually take trains in the past?
They were fearsomely expensive, they were dirty and they were unreliable.
But you know what. Don't take my word for it. Let's simply look at the number of rail passenger journeys:
Do you have the graph for total state subsidy per passenger journey? I know, both stats are functions of a variable with a very tailed distribution, but even so ...
The British invented the train. And yet we now rely on the French to run our railways.
We once again must have confidence in ourselves, to have agency and control over our own lives. Here in the UK. This is a great country, we can once again do great things. The Tories believe Britain is better ruled from abroad, Labour thinks we have a lot more to offer here.
Labour can have that for free.
The Germans and the French demanded lower subsidies than the Brits.
Do you think handing out tax payers money to greedy bankers wrapped in a Union Flag is a good use of scarce resources?
The British invented the train. And yet we now rely on the French to run our railways.
We once again must have confidence in ourselves, to have agency and control over our own lives. Here in the UK. This is a great country, we can once again do great things. The Tories believe Britain is better ruled from abroad, Labour thinks we have a lot more to offer here.
Labour can have that for free.
Railways were invented in Ancient Greece. It was in Britain that the application of machine power was first used to drive them. Animal-powered railways are very old.
If the railways are so good, why is subsidy at its highest level ever? Why are we subsidising the French Government?
I don't know if you heard of the Covid-19 pandemic? Apparently it dramatically cut travel down.
And, to answer your question, if it costs less to have SNCF run our railways, and they do it better, then you are an idiot to want to change it for flag waving reasons.
The British invented the train. And yet we now rely on the French to run our railways.
We once again must have confidence in ourselves, to have agency and control over our own lives. Here in the UK. This is a great country, we can once again do great things. The Tories believe Britain is better ruled from abroad, Labour thinks we have a lot more to offer here.
Labour can have that for free.
The Germans and the French demanded lower subsidies than the Brits.
Do you think handing out tax payers money to greedy bankers wrapped in a Union Flag is a good use of scarce resources?
I think the railways here are a joke and we should cut the French out who have done a piss poor job. Yes
Tim S said:"Yes, one area where we can diverge is in not banning things that certain European countries have irrational hang ups about.
Unfortunately that won’t work for GM crops which are one of the most irrationally feared phenomena of all, because we need access to EU agri markets."
It's been a few years, but, if I recall correctly, some Europeans were objecting to US food donated to starving Africans, because the Africans might plant some of the GMO grains, rather than eating them.
From what I can tell, Green superstition has done even more damage to Europe than the US. And terrible damage to some developing nations. For example, the fight against "golden" rice.
If the railways are so good, why is subsidy at its highest level ever? Why are we subsidising the French Government?
We aren’t - we subsidise a rail route that we have given to SNCF to manage at a senior management level.
It’s not different from elsewhere where I find it hilarious that what was the Sunderland Bus (Arriva) company runs trains in the Netherlands and buses in Copenhagen.
I don't know, my train was 45 minutes late on Tuesday and cost £60 for a return, is that better than it was in the past? Really?
Did you actually take trains in the past?
They were fearsomely expensive, they were dirty and they were unreliable.
But you know what. Don't take my word for it. Let's simply look at the number of rail passenger journeys:
Do you have the graph for total state subsidy per passenger journey? I know, both stats are functions of a variable with a very tailed distribution, but even so ...
Here's the total subsidy from Wikipedia:
When you combine inflation, economic growth and increased number of journeys, it is is incredibly obvious that subsidies have declined massively in real terms.
Yep, it looks very much like Labour are going to go into the next election on a platform - if you ignore their rhetoric and a few eye-catching but token policy flourishes in areas like green energy - of managing the existing state of affairs less incompetently than the Tories. They're going to go our of their way to change as little as possible.
Your march Left is heartening to see. I can't reassure you totally, since I don't know for sure, but my sense is Starmer is all about derisking the GE as far as he possibly can, and that once in power (assuming he does win) he'll prove a bit more radical than you think. So don't write him off comrade.
That's exactly what I keep warning of on here: he's saying what he needs to say to get in.
Others say it's the usual Tory scare tactics relating to a Labour leader in opposition.
But, look at what his own side say - like your good self - and the evidence at how he behaved to his own base once he won the Labour leadership election.
You don't know what you'll get with SKS.
Cheer up, flag shagging may become a protected characteristic.
There's no 'patronising contempt' from me, it's just that I don't like to see the Union Jack all over the place. It lowers the tone.
It "lowers the tone".
Jesus. It's the flag of your f-ing country.
The only possible explanation for this is intellectual snobbery: you think you're above having any form of group social identity (save that of your education and values) and look down contemptuously on those that do.
It really isn't that. There's a place for our national flag. Big international sports events, for example, flagship (pun not meant) government buildings. But I don't want to see it as a common feature of life, always behind politicians when they speak, on hats and tee shirts and umbrellas, in municipal premises, in shops, people flying it in their houses and gardens, flags flags flags all over the place. That gives me the willies. I find it tacky at best and at worst rather sinister.
Each to their own. I personally find the idea use of the flag is often sinister to be bizarre, and whilst it can be amusing to note the use of flags next to or behind politicians (and I've had plenty of fun mocking very manufactured political imagery) and the like the 'flag shagging' complaints generally appear to be the more hysterical reaction, you'd think any use of a flag was akin to fascism the way some people react oneline.
You look at most national leaders or diplomatic events and there's flags all over the place, it is pretty normal imagery, so if people don't personally like it being flown about the place then fine, that's their preference, but from my own position I just don't see it as a big deal.
I’ve long held a theory, which could be bollocks, that the British don’t get overly excited about the flag because there is a combination of very rarely being genuinely threatened by invasion and national confidence from empire which has over-ridden any memories of the greatest threat of invasion in WW2.
I used to notice clearly how when I went to school in the UK how few Union Flags I saw. Coming from Jersey you would see them everywhere but very rarely in the UK. Over time I figured that when you come from somewhere vulnerable or on the “edge” you cling to the symbols that indicate freedom or a culture much more strongly and visibly.
Somewhere that is “British” such as Jersey has constantly been invaded by the French, occasionally Spaniards and of course the Germans. Even the old architecture developed as it did because wooden building would just be burnt by French raids. Throughout history somewhere like Jersey has relied on the British army and Navy to protect it and fight alongside the militia to keep the place British and not French.
So in these places, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, the Falklands and so on the flag means more than some jingoistic statement it’s an acknowledgement of safety and an age old fear that Britain protected from.
If you are a country that’s been invaded a lot or gained independence then the flag again symbolises a freedom. People in Britain don’t really have that inbuilt sense of threat and fragility of their existence and so the flag doesn’t represent something that’s been hard won.
On that basis certain pubs in Glasgow must be absolutely shiteing themselves over the threat of invasion.
I take your point about an inbuilt sense of threat and fragility.
If the railways are so good, why is subsidy at its highest level ever? Why are we subsidising the French Government?
I don't know if you heard of the Covid-19 pandemic? Apparently it dramatically cut travel down.
And, to answer your question, if it costs less to have SNCF run our railways, and they do it better, then you are an idiot to want to change it for flag waving reasons.
I want to run our railways here and not have the French do it because I think we could do it better than the French do. But the Tories believe that we're incapable of doing so.
The current model is broken, laughably so. The companies have all gone or are going, bust.
Tim S said:"Yes, one area where we can diverge is in not banning things that certain European countries have irrational hang ups about.
Unfortunately that won’t work for GM crops which are one of the most irrationally feared phenomena of all, because we need access to EU agri markets."
It's been a few years, but, if I recall correctly, some Europeans were objecting to US food donated to starving Africans, because the Africans might plant some of the GMO grains, rather than eating them.
From what I can tell, Green superstition has done even more damage to Europe than the US. And terrible damage to some developing nations. For example, the fight against "golden" rice.
You should read Seed Capital.
Monsanto behaved despicably. GE food can work very well - GMO is less obvious. But there’s a reason it has a bad name.
Comments
- there is no horrid factories or building near them
- the politicians get to pick the winners.
- etc
That this adds up to an anti-growth agenda is someone else’s fault.
Fact Sheet On German Military Aid To #Ukraine 🇩🇪🇺🇦
Newly PLEDGED equipment:
- 4 IRIS-T SLM SAM Systems
- 12 IRIS-T SLS SAM Launchers
- 30 Leopard 1A5 MBTs
- 20 Marder IFVs
- 100 ''Armoured Fighting Vehicles''
- 200 Reconnaissance UAVs
https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1657328911653515264
They're getting serious.
I’m reviewing a fairly generic 5 star on the Red Sea Coast. It’s all extremely forgettable, including the food
However I’m with a hilarious bunch of British journalists. All at least 20 years younger than me and maybe slightly naive in these matters. So I’m having fun teaching them “Yes you really can drink as much as you like and it’s all free”
Like a tribal elder handing down the old ways
Activating it in Iran, for use by protestors, only went ahead after some complex legal work by the US government.
This isn’t necessarily to do with needing downlinks. Though a number of countries are mandating that Starlink for their territory downlinks within their borders and connects to the local internet. So the country in question can have control of the content.
Starlink is increasingly using laser links on the satellite to bounce the signals round the world. Which means in theory they won’t need a local downlink, soon.
In 1966 the Daily Telegraph cost 4d (old money). To buy it for a year cost around £6.
A one year sub to the print edition (daily and Sunday) now costs around £1000 (£19 per week). More if you buy it the old fashioned way.
Beat that.
But in 1966 you could read Peter Simple - beyond price - four times a week for a few pennies.
I’d rather go back to where you are now, actually believing it did create mayhem and Truss crashed the economy. But that is not true, it’s ignorance to continue to believe it.
It's the doom loop that all but killed local papers a while back. The internet disturbed the model, so papers had to charge more to deliver less. So sales fell and so on.
I'm of an age and background where I buy the Romford Recorder, but only about 10000 others do the same. No wonder they can't afford to make it any good.
The thing is that, for all we get stuff free of the net, we're going to miss proper paid-for newspapers when they go.
Even the horrible ones.
But it’s true there is nothing, zero, zilch in your 2 sentences to challenge the three economic fundamentals I laid out people lazily and ignorantly and politically blame Truss for
1) issue with currency pressure was global, not wholly the mini budget
2) issue with rates was global and predated Truss premiership
3) issue with pensions was not crated by mini budget, it predated mini budget, mini budget provoked the revelation of it - but if Sunak had won instead, the same problem was lurking there for him. Fact.
On a similar note, standard definition Netflix (£6.99) is now at a reasonable resolution for laptop / tablet viewing. If you don't use Netflix on a large screen, you can save £4 a month by downgrading.
But the BANANAs just use the same language as an excuse. They become easy to spot as for all their protestation of not being against building in the right place or right way, their passionate rejection never wavers no matter how much is done, and they fall back more and more on, essentially, that they just don't like it. It is most obvious with really big, strategic projects where the motivation is easier to spot, but it gets revealed often enough elsewhere.
But they all share the same 8 hectare field. The other side of the road is the downright cheap Batard Montrachet vineyard (Leflaive prices c.1.5-3k per bottle) and above is Chevalier Montrachet (similar prices).
The whole thing is an expression of the madness of the edge cases of globalisation. It’s the 0.0001% mirror of the child sleeping in a box under a railway embankment in Dhaka.
Yet it’s all bizarrely understated and modest looking. No fences, no security lights, no bling. Nothing even like the Bordeaux chateaux. And a few miles South in the Châlonnaise where I stopped off at the Cave Coop of Bissey you can buy decent Bourgogne rouge and blanc for €7 a bottle.
That can run its own services rather than paying the Germans to do it for us.
https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/nearly-sorry-for-them-1e850d48e70c
Anyone have any actual evidence of this?
I used to notice clearly how when I went to school in the UK how few Union Flags I saw. Coming from Jersey you would see them everywhere but very rarely in the UK. Over time I figured that when you come from somewhere vulnerable or on the “edge” you cling to the symbols that indicate freedom or a culture much more strongly and visibly.
Somewhere that is “British” such as Jersey has constantly been invaded by the French, occasionally Spaniards and of course the Germans. Even the old architecture developed as it did because wooden building would just be burnt by French raids. Throughout history somewhere like Jersey has relied on the British army and Navy to protect it and fight alongside the militia to keep the place British and not French.
So in these places, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, the Falklands and so on the flag means more than some jingoistic statement it’s an acknowledgement of safety and an age old fear that Britain protected from.
If you are a country that’s been invaded a lot or gained independence then the flag again symbolises a freedom. People in Britain don’t really have that inbuilt sense of threat and fragility of their existence and so the flag doesn’t represent something that’s been hard won.
It writes itself.
We all have this need, but it’s not always healthy.
Although they did do better adverts in the 1980s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEYQROkuuOU
One flag in the garden does not signify someone in imminent danger of nationalist manipulation. If anything, getting worried by the mere flying of a flag as if there is a major risk that it signifies such a thing seems counterproductive to me. It's not like the infamous Emily Thorberry house in terms of 'That's a bit excessive'. Most people don't fly, I don't, but I don't think most people would assume that level is something to worry about.
Unless it was an English flag. I know several people who say if they see an English flag they assume the person flying it is racist. Sadly it's reputation is pretty shot with some.
https://www.youtube.com/live/BQCRPCNJ83g?feature=share
“Do you think the Russians should run our railways? Rishi Sunak does.”
Or if the side-of-bus-style blatant lie doesn’t appeal, the subtler not actually a lie but devious:
“Do you think rich Russian donors to the Tory party with links to the Kremlin should run our railways? Labour doesn’t.”
We once again must have confidence in ourselves, to have agency and control over our own lives. Here in the UK. This is a great country, we can once again do great things. The Tories believe Britain is better ruled from abroad, Labour thinks we have a lot more to offer here.
Labour can have that for free.
Unfortunately that won’t work for GM crops which are one of the most irrationally feared phenomena of all, because we need access to EU agri markets.
Strong, 'no true Conservative' vibes.
I'd much rather freedom of movement.
It is time to leave Government.
But Merkel wasn’t a fan of the idea so Cameron knew it would never happen
When COVID vaccines became widely available, Microsoft volunteered an auditorium, and staffed it with volunteers. (They were so nice that, when I came back for my second shot (jab, if you prefer), I brought them packages of cookies and mint teas.)
Google did nothing for us, locally.
(*It is probably not there to celebrate the Noah story, and, I am nearly certain that Google's, comitment to "diversity" is, shall we say, incomplete.)
Or perhaps just a NATO flag. That would get some fun Twitter conspiracies going.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/single-eu-railway-area/
And if we had stayed in the EU, we would have been forced to do by law what we do voluntarily now.
The insecurity felt by people in England, is harder to justify (and, I believe, less commonplace). The flying of the English flag can also be benign but there's a stronger chance of it being the result of an anxiety borne of more sinister origins.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Welsh can also be racist and English flags are very often not flown with any sinister motive at all. But there's a different balance of probability given the context of the objective security and the differential histories, and those probabilities form a heuristic that lead to different responses in observers.
They were fearsomely expensive, they were dirty and they were unreliable.
But you know what. Don't take my word for it. Let's simply look at the number of rail passenger journeys:
Do you think the fact my train - the train I took - costing £60 and being 45 minutes late, is any better than it was in the past?
As for train journeys, why don't we look at other countries? Oddly they've gone up too but they haven't privatised anything.
More than 800 uncounted postal votes have been found following last week's local elections in North Lincolnshire.
A total of 864 votes for the election in the Broughton and Scawby ward had been found, but only after the result had been declared, the council said.
The law does not allow votes to be counted following a declaration.
It was a "genuine mistake" and the election outcome in that ward had been referred to the Electoral Commission, North Lincolnshire Council said.
Two Conservatives were elected in the ward following the election on 4 May, with around 525 votes each.
Labour came second with their two candidates gaining 367 and 355 votes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-65570851
Do you think handing out tax payers money to greedy bankers wrapped in a Union Flag is a good use of scarce resources?
The train service, stations, price, safety and levels of subsidy required are all massively better than they were in the past.
Those who look upon the British Rail age with anything other than utter horror are deluding themselves.
Absolutely despicable . Is this who we are as a nation now ?
Nationalising the railways would not return us to BR days. Unless you think LNER today is like British Rail
And, to answer your question, if it costs less to have SNCF run our railways, and they do it better, then you are an idiot to want to change it for flag waving reasons.
Unfortunately that won’t work for GM crops which are one of the most irrationally feared phenomena of all, because we need access to EU agri markets."
It's been a few years, but, if I recall correctly, some Europeans were objecting to US food donated to starving Africans, because the Africans might plant some of the GMO grains, rather than eating them.
From what I can tell, Green superstition has done even more damage to Europe than the US. And terrible damage to some developing nations. For example, the fight against "golden" rice.
That's the substance of your argument. An anecdote devoid of context.
I guess UKIP will be happy!
It’s not different from elsewhere where I find it hilarious that what was the Sunderland Bus (Arriva) company runs trains in the Netherlands and buses in Copenhagen.
You can support nationalisation whilst also accepting BR was shit - as I do.
My point was that if you think 45 minutes and £60 is somehow "good" I am going to laugh at you. We can do an awful lot better.
When you combine inflation, economic growth and increased number of journeys, it is is incredibly obvious that subsidies have declined massively in real terms.
I take your point about an inbuilt sense of threat and fragility.
The current model is broken, laughably so. The companies have all gone or are going, bust.
Monsanto behaved despicably. GE food can work very well - GMO is less obvious. But there’s a reason it has a bad name.