Fitch places triple A-rated US debt on rating watch negative “we believe risks have risen that the debt limit will not be raised or suspended before the x-date and consequently that the government could begin to miss payments on some of its obligations. The brinkmanship over the debt ceiling, failure of the U.S. authorities to meaningfully tackle medium-term fiscal challenges that will lead to rising budget deficits and a growing debt burden signal downside risks to U.S. creditworthiness” https://twitter.com/SaraEisen/status/1661509563638759424
Morning all! Lets all enjoy the spectacle of today's *legal* migration numbers and the mouth-foaming from a right wing. "We're not racists" they insist, they just want all foreigners to go away. Which isn't racism, its jingoism, bigotry, false patriotism where the Empire still dominates the world, all that bollocks.
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
@MrHarryCole The Prime Minister will respond to thirteen years of abject government failure on migration pledges… from the This Morning sofa.
@MrHarryCole Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
There no one more stupid than someone who thinks they are clever.
Exhibit A - Dominic Cummings.
This meme is ridiculous. Cummings is obviously and genuinely clever
He may be a nasty bully, absurd Brexiteer, misguided loon, and whatever, but all the available evidence says he is obviously a bright spark.
I detest this tendency to demean the intelligence of those we politically oppose
I disagree with these people entirely - sometimes almost violently - but I can recognise the intelligence on the British Left of:
Owen Jones John McDonnell Marina Hyde Nicola Sturgeon NPXMPX3
He really, really isn't.
And that's based on observing him and his mistakes, incompetence and lack of ability to grasp any concept beyond a very basic level over many years in several areas.
He gives the impression to the uninitiated of great intellect because of his smoothness and verbosity, but strip it away and there's never any substance.
This is of course why he's been a failure in every role he's had.
He's not alone. Tristram Hunt is similarly lightweight but fools many who are even stupider with his urbanity.
This is bloody absurd
He won
The Northen indy referendum The campaign against the euro The EU referendum The 2019 election which, with its big Boris majority, confirmed Brexit
To run through these in turn:
He worked on the North East Assembly referendum campaign for two days and came up with one slogan. The think tank he was running as part of it went bankrupt six months later because it could get no work.
He had nothing to do with the campaign against the Euro. That was Brown.
The EU referendum, again, he came up with one slogan. It was wrong.
For the 2019 election, he came up with a number of slogans but not a single policy that has been successfully implemented.
While chief of staff, he made innumerable embarrassing mistakes including stealing a phone, breaking lockdown, misunderstanding recruitment procedures and constantly leaking misinformation about himself to the press.
And that’s even before I get on to his failed commercial ventures or the disasters he wrought at the DfE.
He claims a much bigger role for himself than he had in all of these things I’m not sure whether that’s dishonesty or whether his self-delusion genuinely extends to the ability to rewrite his past to make himself seem more brilliant.
The issue is he’s not that bright, but he puts out propaganda claiming he is. Unfortunately Gove and Johnson were taken in by it.
Cummings is a skillful project manager, which means he is very good at marshalling people and resources (and messages in his case) to deliver a result. As a sometimes PM I recognise his skill and would be happy for him lead a project if I could cope with his personality.
He should be let nowhere near policy and his blogs are drivel.
It was jaw dropping yesterday to see Sunak accusing Starmer of wanting an open door immigration policy . The Tories certainly can’t go into the next general election with net migration running at 500,000 plus so I expect student numbers to be removed and lots of other measures announced !
@MrHarryCole The Prime Minister will respond to thirteen years of abject government failure on migration pledges… from the This Morning sofa.
@MrHarryCole Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
For the nth time it is not the migration policy that is in tatters. It is our serious failure to train and invest in people in this country over the last couple of decades. I begin to wonder if membership of the SM and freedom of movement was the sole cause of this catastrophe. Did we train our young people to do anything useful at all when it was so easy to import labour from abroad?
The lack of skilled, trained labour is so severe that we cannot blame it on freedom of movement alone. Governments of both stripes did not do nearly enough to encourage training and our further education establishments have also taken their eye off the ball. Much to do.
@MrHarryCole The Prime Minister will respond to thirteen years of abject government failure on migration pledges… from the This Morning sofa.
@MrHarryCole Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
For the nth time it is not the migration policy that is in tatters. It is our serious failure to train and invest in people in this country over the last couple of decades. I begin to wonder if membership of the SM and freedom of movement was the sole cause of this catastrophe. Did we train our young people to do anything useful at all when it was so easy to import labour from abroad?
The lack of skilled, trained labour is so severe that we cannot blame it on freedom of movement alone. Governments of both stripes did not do nearly enough to encourage training and our further education establishments have also taken their eye off the ball. Much to do.
...training people to pick apples and care for old people and fish? And fill shelves and drive taxis.
Morning all, as mentioned ad nauseam, Germany has a much higher -training, higher-skills economy than us, and has added about 2 million people in the last two years.
The debate on R4 this morning is woefully full of soundbites, simplicities and over-simple oppositions.
A Nazi-themed poster of skinheads displaying swastikas was fixed to a wall by police officers working in a “racist” unit at the Dorset force, a misconduct hearing was told.
One PC allegedly called a black motorist a “c**n” while on duty. Another is accused of humiliating a junior colleague to the point where he felt suicidal.
Inspector Nicholas Mantle, PC Mark Jordan-Gill, PC Michael Lowther, PC Matthew Young and PC Paul Perdrisat allegedly fostered a culture of “racist, misogynistic and homophobic’ behaviour while serving in Dorset police’s force support group based in Bournemouth, the hearing was told.
The unit deals with outbreaks of public disorder in the town centre.
They are also accused of posting pornographic, misogynistic and racist messages in a WhatsApp group called “The Real FSG”. Four officers attended the hearing but all five deny the allegations of gross misconduct.
As @Cyclefree continually points out it is the fact that the culture makes this kind of behaviour even conceivable that is the real concern here.
On my LinkedIn feed this morning, an email from the recruitment consultants inviting applications to become members of the newly announced London Policing Board.
You have to fill in a form and send in a 2 minute video. Well that will be easy: here you go 11 articles on what is wrong with the police and what needs to be done. Read those. Call me when you've read them.
On iPlayer there is a reading of a book called "Into the Night" - an account of a primary school teacher's year as a special Constable in London. It is well worth hearing because it describes well the reality of the daily job for policemen and how hard it can be and what good policing tries to do.
In the first episode he describes being in a van with colleagues and the men describing openly their views of the women they see - their thoughts on their arses and whether they fit with their faces or vice versa and whether they'd do them and so on.
He's shocked but mainly at his own reaction. He doesn't raise this with his superiors unlike, say, racist language because he concludes that if this happens with no-one checking themselves it must be so widespread that the superiors must know it is happening. So no point telling them what they already know. That is your bad culture right there. That kind of thinking about women is deeply embedded and it is not hard to find in groups which are largely male, almost without anyone realising it is happening or why it might be sub-optimal or why it might not lead to good outcomes.
This evening MPs are expected to approve a 30 day ban from the Commons for Margaret Ferrier, who broke Covid rules. A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming.
The golden era of pop started in 1956. Heartbreak Hotel, January 56.
I don’t know when it ended, I’d moot sometime in the mid 2000s, but I’m not sure when.
Of course there is still good music being made (just as there was before 1956), but it no longer has the ability to deliver or embody widespread cultural change.
1997/98 I'd say.
Agree on Heartbreak Hotel.
Wasn't American Pie 1971 an an elegy on the death of great pop music and arguably the last truly great single to become a number one hit?
It referred to Buddy Holly's (et al) death in 1959. We had a minute's silence in the woodwork class.
Comments
Jaw-dropping.
https://twitter.com/SaraEisen/status/1661509563638759424
Starmer's attack on this yesterday was clever, because it calls out the hypocrisy. What may be less clever is that it doesn't face into the reality that much of the WWC red wall vote is as I describe - jingoist and bigoted. They don't want anyone who isn't them living there, never mind people who speak funny.
The Prime Minister will respond to thirteen years of abject government failure on migration pledges… from the This Morning sofa.
@MrHarryCole
Now foreign fishermen will be invited to man British boats amid a major skills shortage - as the Government’s migration promises lie in tatters…
And Good Morning to you all!
driven to Barnard Castle to test its eyesight.
It was jaw dropping yesterday to see Sunak accusing Starmer of wanting an open door immigration policy . The Tories certainly can’t go into the next general election with net migration running at 500,000 plus so I expect student numbers to be removed and lots of other measures announced !
The lack of skilled, trained labour is so severe that we cannot blame it on freedom of movement alone. Governments of both stripes did not do nearly enough to encourage training and our further education establishments have also taken their eye off the ball. Much to do.
The debate on R4 this morning is woefully full of soundbites, simplicities and over-simple oppositions.
You have to fill in a form and send in a 2 minute video. Well that will be easy: here you go 11 articles on what is wrong with the police and what needs to be done. Read those. Call me when you've read them.
On iPlayer there is a reading of a book called "Into the Night" - an account of a primary school teacher's year as a special Constable in London. It is well worth hearing because it describes well the reality of the daily job for policemen and how hard it can be and what good policing tries to do.
In the first episode he describes being in a van with colleagues and the men describing openly their views of the women they see - their thoughts on their arses and whether they fit with their faces or vice versa and whether they'd do them and so on.
He's shocked but mainly at his own reaction. He doesn't raise this with his superiors unlike, say, racist language because he concludes that if this happens with no-one checking themselves it must be so widespread that the superiors must know it is happening. So no point telling them what they already know. That is your bad culture right there. That kind of thinking about women is deeply embedded and it is not hard to find in groups which are largely male, almost without anyone realising it is happening or why it might be sub-optimal or why it might not lead to good outcomes.
A recall petition will be triggered in Rutherglen and Hamilton West and a by-election could be looming.
https://twitter.com/stvkathryn/status/1661635964823904256