I signed up for FD ages ago on the basis that I use my laptop for everything so an online bank made sense. Annoyingly for me, they have shifted to be much more oriented to smartphones - to use their laptop version, you have to go to your phone, start to log on, then say no, cancel that, now give me the codes screen, now I want the first of the three code options, and then enter the code on the laptop. The RBS system for laptop users (enter two sets of three characters from your chosen two code words - e.g. 1st 3rd and 5th characters in "Hannibal") is far more laptop-friendly.
Where all these native Irish Gaelic speakers? 623,000 of 'em speaking it "daily"?
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
That's it
Can't speak for Ireland, but I've lived in Wales over 10 years. In the place I first lived in, I heard Welsh spoken all the time. Where I am now, I pretty much never hear it. There's a big variation in where it's spoken. I can imagine it might be the same in Ireland.
Also social context. The very presence of a monoglot outsider might stop its usage.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
Realistically the ABC1C2DE categorisation is well past its sell-by, but is so embedded that it’s hard to move away from (for example, it’s a common media buying audience categorisation).
Is there anything that prevents a council buying land now?
Is the enormous differential in land price between land with and without planning permission really news to anyone?
So: I'm not that much of a fan of having cities with sharply delineated zones - a la SimCity - for Residential, Industrial, Commercial, etc.
BUT. If you want to streamline the planning process, then I think @Philip_Thompson's idea of having zones where there is a presumption of "yes" for new residential properties is an excellent one.
I certainly think there's a case for doing it for having a number of time limited zones in areas of the country where there are particular crunches.
It is also important to note that we have plenty of parts of the country where there are lots of homes available for pretty low prices. Using regional development policy to try and shift some of the demand for residential property to these areas is also a smart idea. (And, I would note, has been at the heart of German policy.)
Where all these native Irish Gaelic speakers? 623,000 of 'em speaking it "daily"?
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
That's it
Can't speak for Ireland, but I've lived in Wales over 10 years. In the place I first lived in, I heard Welsh spoken all the time. Where I am now, I pretty much never hear it. There's a big variation in where it's spoken. I can imagine it might be the same in Ireland.
Welsh has far more speakers than Irish or Scots Gaelic
I've heard Welsh many times. I used to hear it in Herefordshire growing up - farmers coming over the border to the market
I've heard Scots Gaelic a fair few times but that's because I've done so much dedicated travel in the vanishingly few areas where you might hear it. Especially the Sleat peninsula in Skye (with its Gaelic speaking college) and the Islands of Lewis and Harris
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
Might be able to sniper them under a Tory government, but if there is a government change in UK next year, snipering these extremist vandals will be against Labour Party policy - the Labour Party is being funded by the political wing of these extremists, so will be giving back something in return for the millions of political funding. By accepting donations from the political wing of these extremist groups, will Labour now even be able to clamp down on, arrest and imprison these extremists, let alone sniper them? This is exactly how once moderate and stable countries slip into anarchy and chaos isn’t it?
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
Really, is that view based on actual usage on a regular basis or the odd holiday? I guess you haven't been trying to use it when they go on one of their many strikes? French punctuality is a massive 1% better (91%) than British (90%) according to the EU. The UK system is also the third safest in Europe.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
I really don't understand this post. You throw some figures out that show French railways to be marginally better, and then you conclude that private ownership is better.
Do you realise how weak this makes your assertions look?
Not only that, but there is a huge difference between publicly owned and publicly run. The danger is in running businesses from Whitehall - directly or at arms length. If we can find a way of squaring that circle (as others have) then we're on to a winner (for any 'business' that requires heavy subsidy as a public good; or "not Pickfords" as I would put it)
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
Might be able to sniper them under a Tory government, but if there is a government change in UK next year, snipering these extremist vandals will be against Labour Party policy - the Labour Party is being funded by the political wing of these extremists, so will be giving back something in return for the millions of political funding. By excepting donations from the political wing of these extremist groups, will Labour now even be able to clamp down on, arrest and imprison these extremists, let alone sniper them? This is exactly how once moderate and stable countries slip into anarchy and chaos isn’t it?
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
Where all these native Irish Gaelic speakers? 623,000 of 'em speaking it "daily"?
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
That's it
Can't speak for Ireland, but I've lived in Wales over 10 years. In the place I first lived in, I heard Welsh spoken all the time. Where I am now, I pretty much never hear it. There's a big variation in where it's spoken. I can imagine it might be the same in Ireland.
I've spent time in Corca Dhuibhne (Dingle), which is supposed to be the heart of Gaelic speaking Ireland.
And while it's certainly true that most people there *can* speak at least some Gaelic, it's extremely unusual to hear people speak it conversationally.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
There's a jump in logic there.
Rental prices should reflect supply and demand for rental property so there is little reason for rental prices to follow mortgage rates and if they do I have to ask how come the market is so imperfect...
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
Really, is that view based on actual usage on a regular basis or the odd holiday? I guess you haven't been trying to use it when they go on one of their many strikes? French punctuality is a massive 1% better (91%) than British (90%) according to the EU. The UK system is also the third safest in Europe.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
I really don't understand this post. You throw some figures out that show French railways to be marginally better, and then you conclude that private ownership is better.
Do you realise how weak this makes your assertions look?
Not only that, but there is a huge difference between publicly owned and publicly run. The danger is in running businesses from Whitehall - directly or at arms length. If we can find a way of squaring that circle (as others have) then we're on to a winner (for any 'business' that requires heavy subsidy as a public good; or "not Pickfords" as I would put it)
That's the model for London Overground, isn't it? State says what it wants to happen, contractor delivers it for a fee.
Seems to keep the business people focused on doing the desired things in a way that doesn't happen for rail franchises. The downside of navigating a business by profit is that sometimes there's more to be made by finding corners to cut rather than delivering a sustainably good service.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
I doubt it is "far less with just a mortgage". The number of people with just a non-mortgage loan secured on their property is going to be pretty small.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
There's a jump in logic there.
Rental prices should reflect supply and demand for rental property so there is little reason for rental prices to follow mortgage rates and if they do I have to ask how come the market is so imperfect...
Higher mortgage rates will restrict the supply of new rental properties, so it will have an effect; just not a huge one.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
There's a jump in logic there.
Rental prices should reflect supply and demand for rental property so there is little reason for rental prices to follow mortgage rates and if they do I have to ask how come the market is so imperfect...
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
Really, is that view based on actual usage on a regular basis or the odd holiday? I guess you haven't been trying to use it when they go on one of their many strikes? French punctuality is a massive 1% better (91%) than British (90%) according to the EU. The UK system is also the third safest in Europe.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
Actual usage for work over 15 years, travelling up and down between Edinburgh, Yorkshire and London.
I am 62, and can well remember the 60s and 70s - a time when plenty of private companies were shite too - BMC / British Leyland, BSA spring to mind.
It's a busy place in central London where there are staff paid to deal with such issues. So I'm not surprised no-one paused to help a couple of people would have tried to find a staff member to get someone qualified in first aid to come quickly.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
That struck me as being an astonishing statistic - and having looked at the link I don't think it's quite as staggering as it initially sounds.
The share for house purchase for owner occupation was 55.4%, down 0.8pp on the previous quarter, but up 2.3pp from 2021 Q4. The share of gross advances for remortgages for owner occupation was 27.3%, a decrease of 0.8pp since 2021 Q4, but an increase of 2.4pp since 2022 Q3 (Chart 5).
So my reading is that Second homes or Buy-to-Let are (100% - 55.4% - 27.3%) = 17.3% which is still about 10% too high in my view, but more reasonable.
The Cabinet Office has told the Covid-19 inquiry that it cannot hand over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks because it does not possess them.
The inquiry has given the government until Thursday afternoon to explain what measures it has taken to gather the material, postponing a likely legal battle by two days.
In a further complication, Johnson claimed he was happy to pass the documents to the Cabinet Office but that officials had not asked.
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
Might be able to sniper them under a Tory government, but if there is a government change in UK next year, snipering these extremist vandals will be against Labour Party policy - the Labour Party is being funded by the political wing of these extremists, so will be giving back something in return for the millions of political funding. By excepting donations from the political wing of these extremist groups, will Labour now even be able to clamp down on, arrest and imprison these extremists, let alone sniper them? This is exactly how once moderate and stable countries slip into anarchy and chaos isn’t it?
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
Stop reading the Daily Mail. You need help
Rabbit has no interest in the Mail. It's too lefty.
with political parties funded in this way, taking money from absolutely anyone just because they love one and a half million pound donations, and they who pay the piper plays the tune, just how democratic can we state a country is? You are tackling the player not the ball because you don’t have an answer to this question, that’s plain for everyone to see.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
Yes - those loans are presumably largely interest bearing but not secured against the property, which is why they are lumped together in the statistics.
But I completely agree - the reverse point is very valid.
Pretty sure the core theme of this article has been reiterated for decades, if not centuries. O tempora, O mores indeed.
People seem to complain about how much worse thing have become a lot more recently. When I was younger, people were nearly so prone to nostalgia.
Nostalgia has definitely got worse. In the past it had a moving, poetic quality, bordering on the profound, nowadays nostalgia is just glib and whiney
Who can forget when PB lamented the decline in quality of "supermarket tannoy announcements"
You just don't get nostalgia like that any more
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Aye. I remember proper nostalgia. Drop forged in’t water powered mill by men in top ‘ats, it were. Made from Derbyshire pig iron, heated with Welsh best.
That’s proper nostalgia. None of your NFT lark, that.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
That struck me as being an astonishing statistic - and having looked at the link I don't think it's quite as staggering as it initially sounds.
The share for house purchase for owner occupation was 55.4%, down 0.8pp on the previous quarter, but up 2.3pp from 2021 Q4. The share of gross advances for remortgages for owner occupation was 27.3%, a decrease of 0.8pp since 2021 Q4, but an increase of 2.4pp since 2022 Q3 (Chart 5).
So my reading is that Second homes or Buy-to-Let are (100% - 55.4% - 27.3%) = 17.3% which is still about 10% too high in my view, but more reasonable.
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
Might be able to sniper them under a Tory government, but if there is a government change in UK next year, snipering these extremist vandals will be against Labour Party policy - the Labour Party is being funded by the political wing of these extremists, so will be giving back something in return for the millions of political funding. By excepting donations from the political wing of these extremist groups, will Labour now even be able to clamp down on, arrest and imprison these extremists, let alone sniper them? This is exactly how once moderate and stable countries slip into anarchy and chaos isn’t it?
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
Stop reading the Daily Mail. You need help
If the Daily Mail places a question on its front page, or wherever or whenever someone repeats it, you need to answer it, not come back with a ridiculous response implying the questioner has a mental health issue. You need to come back with a proper answer, proving your position is indeed the better one because.
The is the actual art to politics and debating politics properly on a forum.
You have left this very clear you believe Labour, Tory, accepting £1.5M donations from anyone on earth is no problem at all for UK democracy.
It's a busy place in central London where there are staff paid to deal with such issues. So I'm not surprised no-one paused to help a couple of people would have tried to find a staff member to get someone qualified in first aid to come quickly.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen doing this thing where she'd pretend to collapse in the street and if anyone came to her aid she'd award them this tacky little lapel pin. "Hearts of gold". What a dreadful, cringy, awful thing it was. Put me off helping strangers for life.
For the record, there are some people who I wouldn't help if I'd seen they'd collapsed.
You know, Jeremy Beedle, Iain Dale, Jolyon Whatsisname, that kind of person.
It's a busy place in central London where there are staff paid to deal with such issues. So I'm not surprised no-one paused to help a couple of people would have tried to find a staff member to get someone qualified in first aid to come quickly.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen doing this thing where she'd pretend to collapse in the street and if anyone came to her aid she'd award them this tacky little lapel pin. "Hearts of gold". What a dreadful, cringy, awful thing it was. Put me off helping strangers for life.
For the record, there are some people who I wouldn't help if I'd seen they'd collapsed.
You know, Jeremy Beedle, Iain Dale, Jolyon Whatsisname, that kind of person.
It seems very likely, on these figures, that the Scottish government is looking at either substantial cuts or significant tax increases or a combination of both in the election year for the Scottish Parliament. Another piece of inspirational planning by Yousless.
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
Might be able to sniper them under a Tory government, but if there is a government change in UK next year, snipering these extremist vandals will be against Labour Party policy - the Labour Party is being funded by the political wing of these extremists, so will be giving back something in return for the millions of political funding. By excepting donations from the political wing of these extremist groups, will Labour now even be able to clamp down on, arrest and imprison these extremists, let alone sniper them? This is exactly how once moderate and stable countries slip into anarchy and chaos isn’t it?
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
Stop reading the Daily Mail. You need help
Rabbit has no interest in the Mail. It's too lefty.
with political parties funded in this way, taking money from absolutely anyone just because they love one and a half million pound donations, and they who pay the piper plays the tune, just how democratic can we state a country is? You are tackling the player not the ball because you don’t have an answer to this question, that’s plain for everyone to see.
You were trying to say yesterday this guy was as bad as Putin. Nobody can be expected to engage with you seriously on this issue. This is pigeon/chess territory.
I didn’t say that all, it was those arguing with me who brought Putin into it, on the grounds alongs it’s not money from Putins regime like Tory’s have taken then any other donation from anybody else is acceptable. Quite a pathetic fake yardstick you agree - is the money from Putin or Russia? No? Accept it then, as it’s not as bad of Putin/SMERCH money.
You and the others have given quite the pathetic reply to the Daily Mails questioning of Labour’s democratic values actually. For one thing, since 2010 the Tory Party overall have been more susceptible to Chinese use of soft power, splashing their largesse around the world, they get from running a country of slave workers with no rights at all - only appears Boris and his cronies who made the mistake accepting the Russian cash, whilst the parties official policy was to condemn seizure and occupation of Crimea.
Straight away last evening and this afternoon throwing Putin’s money as being the yardstick for all political donations, has been quite pathetic reply from you hasn’t it? There is a fair and serious question here about the funding of our political parties and its impact on our democracy.
It's a busy place in central London where there are staff paid to deal with such issues. So I'm not surprised no-one paused to help a couple of people would have tried to find a staff member to get someone qualified in first aid to come quickly.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen doing this thing where she'd pretend to collapse in the street and if anyone came to her aid she'd award them this tacky little lapel pin. "Hearts of gold". What a dreadful, cringy, awful thing it was. Put me off helping strangers for life.
For the record, there are some people who I wouldn't help if I'd seen they'd collapsed.
You know, Jeremy Beedle, Iain Dale, Jolyon Whatsisname, that kind of person.
Jeremy Beadle passed away 15 years ago.
It'll be a miracle if he collapsed in the street.
You're ruling out Jeremy's "death" being his most audacious Beadle's About stunt yet - a 15 year long game?
Also, what was particularly objectionable about Beadle in RCS's view? He wasn't everyone's taste, but I don't think he did anything to put himself in the distressingly large pantheon of light entertainment total arseholes of the 70s and 80s - maybe I missed the horrible truth, but he seemed alright as a person.
Can I just say polls do not excite me at all especially this far out
I have accepted Starmer is likely to be PM, and as I will be 80+ with a diamond wedding celebration behind me in Oct 24 the only thing that does excite me is my wonderful family including 5 grandchildren and politics is unlikely to affect me or my wife no matter who is in power
And by the way how much longer are the media going to obsess over the absurd Schofield/ Willoughby story
It seems very likely, on these figures, that the Scottish government is looking at either substantial cuts or significant tax increases or a combination of both in the election year for the Scottish Parliament. Another piece of inspirational planning by Yousless.
Given the date of the issue Yousless's issue is that another problem of Sturgeon's making is only becoming visible on his watch after she left in a hurry.
The result (as is often the case) is that he is going to cop the blame for issues his predecessor created.
It's a busy place in central London where there are staff paid to deal with such issues. So I'm not surprised no-one paused to help a couple of people would have tried to find a staff member to get someone qualified in first aid to come quickly.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen doing this thing where she'd pretend to collapse in the street and if anyone came to her aid she'd award them this tacky little lapel pin. "Hearts of gold". What a dreadful, cringy, awful thing it was. Put me off helping strangers for life.
For the record, there are some people who I wouldn't help if I'd seen they'd collapsed.
You know, Jeremy Beedle, Iain Dale, Jolyon Whatsisname, that kind of person.
Jeremy Beadle passed away 15 years ago.
It'll be a miracle if he collapsed in the street.
You're ruling out Jeremy's "death" being his most audacious Beadle's About stunt yet - a 15 year long game?
Also, what was particularly objectionable about Beadle in RCS's view? He wasn't everyone's taste, but I don't think he did anything to put himself in the distressingly large pantheon of light entertainment total arseholes of the 70s and 80s - maybe I missed the horrible truth, but he seemed alright as a person.
He also put on one of the earliest free festivals. Right behind my then house. One of my earliest memories was walking there amidst vast crowds and noise.
Not that exciting really. The polling hasn’t moved much, and it’s just one sample, the next sample could reverse much if not all of the movement in this one. The trend over all in polling is Rishi on the slide and Tory’s stuck on 28% nationally, some of the Wall polling does at time come across as off trend and bigger movements, it might be sampling vagaries achieving such specific polling.
I also question the concept of “Wall” type polling, because you have to buy into the concept of Walls as “home advantage” as in sport - the truth in the political world is constituency’s trend away from you here and towards you there all the time, for many reasons but particularly demographically and I suspect not just down to one issue things like Brexit. Is Aldershot trending to Labour were what used to be mining areas trending away from them, for example.
And also posting niche polling like this comes across better with comparison with the last general election I think, if we add that here, as Stodge is likely to, it still shows remarkable swings since the last time these constituency’s had General Election votes, such as to imply political earthquake if election was today rather than May 2nd next year.
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
Yes - those loans are presumably largely interest bearing but not secured against the property, which is why they are lumped together in the statistics.
But I completely agree - the reverse point is very valid.
I think you and @Taz are misreading it. "Mortgages or loans" doesn't refer to a person having a house without a mortgage and also a car loan. I think it refers to all liens on the property, because it is specifically a number from the FCA's data on mortgages.
I am glad Rishi has realised a Cambridge man is always the best man for any job.
Rishi Sunak is expected to this week confirm the appointment of a Cambridge professor who is an outspoken opponent of the IHRA definition of antisemitism as his new “free speech tsar.”
Arif Ahmed, who has spoken out against ‘cancel culture’ on campuses, is understood to have accepted the role of Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, with the power to investigate universities which censure academics for their views.
Jewish News revealed earlier this year how Ahmed had personally criticised the IHRA definition claiming it “obstructs perfectly legitimate defence of Palestinian rights.”
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
Actually it is 37% with mortgages or loans.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
I doubt it is "far less with just a mortgage". The number of people with just a non-mortgage loan secured on their property is going to be pretty small.
Young people are desperately stupid, and getting stupider
There's no denying it any more
Old blokes come out with some stupid shit as well.
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Watch that video. They are thick as shit
That's also edited "highlights". Is your daughter smarter or stupider than you were at that age?
Stupider. All of them are
Also better behaved and politer, and in some ways much nicer and kinder. I was a drunken hoon
But stupider? Absolutely. Their music is shit, their art is shit, they are incapable of original thought, the decline in human intelligence is real, and is accelerating
For the last two months at least, UK businesses have put up prices by more than their costs have risen - the latest data for April shows input prices were up by 3.9%, while output prices increased by 5.4%.
Young people are desperately stupid, and getting stupider
There's no denying it any more
Old blokes come out with some stupid shit as well.
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Watch that video. They are thick as shit
That's also edited "highlights". Is your daughter smarter or stupider than you were at that age?
Stupider. All of them are
Also better behaved and politer, and in some ways much nicer and kinder. I was a drunken hoon
But stupider? Absolutely. Their music is shit, their art is shit, they are incapable of original thought, the decline in human intelligence is real, and is accelerating
Young people are desperately stupid, and getting stupider
There's no denying it any more
Old blokes come out with some stupid shit as well.
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Watch that video. They are thick as shit
That's also edited "highlights". Is your daughter smarter or stupider than you were at that age?
Stupider. All of them are
Also better behaved and politer, and in some ways much nicer and kinder. I was a drunken hoon
But stupider? Absolutely. Their music is shit, their art is shit, they are incapable of original thought, the decline in human intelligence is real, and is accelerating
Early onset dementia is a terrible thing.
In some ways I say Bring it on, because witnessing the now-undeniable decline is quite painful
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
For the last two months at least, UK businesses have put up prices by more than their costs have risen - the latest data for April shows input prices were up by 3.9%, while output prices increased by 5.4%.
There's always a lag between input prices and the impact on output prices. Hopefully this will help a bit though. The long CPI struggle goes on!
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
I'm an Irish speaker in a very loyalist part of Norn Iron. Back in uni I used to write to my local council annoymously and request government documents be translated to Irish which they had to do. As the only Irish speaker in the area they came to me. Basically paid for my uni. 10:25 PM · Jul 8, 2021
For the last two months at least, UK businesses have put up prices by more than their costs have risen - the latest data for April shows input prices were up by 3.9%, while output prices increased by 5.4%.
Says the person threatening to destroy all comers in a debate over the role of the BoE/blame being apportioned on the BoE in the current inflationary mess we are in in a thread this morning 😂😂😂😂
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
Young people are desperately stupid, and getting stupider
There's no denying it any more
Old blokes come out with some stupid shit as well.
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Watch that video. They are thick as shit
That's also edited "highlights". Is your daughter smarter or stupider than you were at that age?
Looking at some of that twitter handles other posts she clearly has an agenda to present in the worst way imaginable to make people who support immigration look dumb. Anyone can cherry pick.
One of her most recent posts. BLM = Buy Luxury Mansions.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
Also: both Cambridge and Oxford have been very happy to give EE offers to students who impressed enormously at interview. (And, indeed, I got a EE offer from UCL.)
With the incoming mortgage disaster as alluded to by TSE, I do still believe we will see a Labour thirty point lead.
There are far more savers than there are mortgage holders in this country. For every loser there will be multiple winners.
About 64% of the adult population have savings. The average amount of savings is £17,365. About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000. BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
I'm renting my flat out on a temporary basis (consent to let) while I'm in Australia. I hadn't realised that a condition is that the rent I charge must be 125% of my mortgage payment, plus a 1% loading fee.
So the interest rate increase has been immediately passed on (also remortgaging) and I've had to be very apologetic to my friend.
For the last two months at least, UK businesses have put up prices by more than their costs have risen - the latest data for April shows input prices were up by 3.9%, while output prices increased by 5.4%.
There's always a lag between input prices and the impact on output prices. Hopefully this will help a bit though. The long CPI struggle goes on!
Yes, this from Julian Jessop shows exactly that on food prices. He reckons they peaked in March.
Young people are desperately stupid, and getting stupider
There's no denying it any more
Old blokes come out with some stupid shit as well.
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Watch that video. They are thick as shit
That's also edited "highlights". Is your daughter smarter or stupider than you were at that age?
Stupider. All of them are
Also better behaved and politer, and in some ways much nicer and kinder. I was a drunken hoon
But stupider? Absolutely. Their music is shit, their art is shit, they are incapable of original thought, the decline in human intelligence is real, and is accelerating
Early onset dementia is a terrible thing.
In some ways I say Bring it on, because witnessing the now-undeniable decline is quite painful
The time is indeed ripe for AI to take over
We had planned to move house recently, and I found a collection of old school books from when I was 13 to 17 years old. I spent a happy hour going through them, and my conclusion is that my daughter is about 18 months ahead of where I was.
I didn't do calculus until A-Level maths; she's doing it in the equivalent of the old Fourth Year (year nine). My essays - until A-Level - were woeful. She is quite able to write 800 words in proper paragraphs, and with decent structure.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
In entirely unrelated news, wasn't Kwasi Kwarteng at Trinity the same time as you were. And Suella Braverman at Queens' only a couple of years later...
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
This is still my favourite Tompkins table correlation.
A graph produced by a Cambridge graduate demonstrates a striking correlation between the wine budgets of Cambridge colleges and the academic attainment of their students.
Kings, St John’s, Trinity and Jesus – the four colleges with an annual wine budget over £200,000 – all obtained more firsts than the collegiate average during the last academic year. With an annual wine expenditure of £14,033 and only 13.2% of students receiving first class degrees, Hughes Hall represents the lowest point on the graph.
King’s College is a notable outlier. Its £338,559 wine budget is the largest of any of the colleges, but it obtained markedly fewer first class degrees than some of its more frugal counterparts. The size of the college’s wine budget has already attracted negative publicity in the weeks since the college’s alcohol outlay was originally made public via a Freedom of Information request. The college’s Living Wage campaigners have adopted the slogan ‘Wages not Wine’ as the rallying cry for their protests.
Grayden Reece-Smith, a student at Churchill College from 2007 to 2010, decided to create the chart after noticing that the colleges with the highest wine budgets were also traditionally those ranked as the best academic performers by in the annual Tompkins Table.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
I believe he was at Wembley watching the mighty Owls get promoted and was then drinking Bedford dry for the next 6 hours
By contrast Wes Streeting was on another jolly to Israel, where he supports and endorses their private health insurance system where participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
I'm an Irish speaker in a very loyalist part of Norn Iron. Back in uni I used to write to my local council annoymously and request government documents be translated to Irish which they had to do. As the only Irish speaker in the area they came to me. Basically paid for my uni. 10:25 PM · Jul 8, 2021
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
In entirely unrelated news, wasn't Kwasi Kwarteng at Trinity the same time as you were. And Suella Braverman at Queens' only a couple of years later...
Yes: he was two years below me, but I knew him because he was very good friends with a friend of mine. I then knew him again when he was at Odey, and I was a Fund Manager around the corner.
I did not know Suella.
I also knew Gavin Barwell and Lucy Frazer from the Union. (And I'm sure I know a few other MPs as well.)
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
I'm an Irish speaker in a very loyalist part of Norn Iron. Back in uni I used to write to my local council annoymously and request government documents be translated to Irish which they had to do. As the only Irish speaker in the area they came to me. Basically paid for my uni. 10:25 PM · Jul 8, 2021
I believe he was at Wembley watching the mighty Owls get promoted and was then drinking Bedford dry for the next 6 hours
By contrast Wes Streeting was on another jolly to Israel, where he supports and endorses their private health insurance system where participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory
They have this in Australia. It seems to work quite well.
It would be shit if Streeting wasn’t interested in how other countries deal with running a public health system.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
Also: both Cambridge and Oxford have been very happy to give EE offers to students who impressed enormously at interview. (And, indeed, I got a EE offer from UCL.)
Indeed but normally almost all those with such offers went on to get at least 3 As or at worst AAB and such offers are relatively rare.
We are now talking Oxbridge taking students who actually got 3 Bs at A Level. When I was at school those were the type of grades which would be borderline to get into Leeds or Nottingham, let alone Oxbridge.
I am all for encouraging more pupils from non selective state schools to apply to Oxbridge, doing practice interviews etc but I am sceptical of lowering actual entry requirements to pupils not up to the academic standard normally required. Especially if private school pupils who got 3 A grades + are rejected as a result
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
I believe he was at Wembley watching the mighty Owls get promoted and was then drinking Bedford dry for the next 6 hours
By contrast Wes Streeting was on another jolly to Israel, where he supports and endorses their private health insurance system where participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory
They have this in Australia. It seems to work quite well.
It would be shit if Streeting wasn’t interested in how other countries deal with running a public health system.
Both Stella Creasy and Wes Streeting are attempting to threaten a doctor-led campaign exposing the network of private healthcare firms giving money to politicians.
The fact they're taking such an aggressive stance at being outed tells you exactly what type of people they are.
You can now get into colleges like Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford with just 3 Bs at A level if you are assessed as a 'disadvantaged' student who went to a state school. Cambridge doing similar
At Cambridge, there has historically been a strong correlation between the proportion of state school pupils and the college's position in the Tompkin's table, with Christ's and Trinity usually topping both the proportion of state school kids and the percentage of firsts.
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
In entirely unrelated news, wasn't Kwasi Kwarteng at Trinity the same time as you were. And Suella Braverman at Queens' only a couple of years later...
Off Topic can any JDW Fans please explain how Tim Martins pubs can sell a pint of Ruddles Bitter for £1.51
Cos they squeeze the brewers till they squeak and drive down quality for the sake of price. And because it’s a bitter they can get away with the cheapest possible hopping etc.
In fairness, an odd by product is that because of the throughput Spoons cask is still often better than in brewery-tied pubs.
Like a lot of drinkers, I’m conflicted on Spoons cos the owner is a bellend* and they have a lot of ropey practices, but they are undeniably providing a social space for people who have not much disposable income but enjoy a beer.
*except that he was right to say publicly that he doesn’t demand that his staff smile and be all fake bonhomie with customers.
Comments
BUT. If you want to streamline the planning process, then I think @Philip_Thompson's idea of having zones where there is a presumption of "yes" for new residential properties is an excellent one.
I certainly think there's a case for doing it for having a number of time limited zones in areas of the country where there are particular crunches.
It is also important to note that we have plenty of parts of the country where there are lots of homes available for pretty low prices. Using regional development policy to try and shift some of the demand for residential property to these areas is also a smart idea. (And, I would note, has been at the heart of German policy.)
I've heard Welsh many times. I used to hear it in Herefordshire growing up - farmers coming over the border to the market
I've heard Scots Gaelic a fair few times but that's because I've done so much dedicated travel in the vanishingly few areas where you might hear it. Especially the Sleat peninsula in Skye (with its Gaelic speaking college) and the Islands of Lewis and Harris
it's a beautiful tongue. So sing song
About 37% of the adult population have mortgages. The average size of a mortgage is about £190,000.
BUT 35% of the population are renters; the rental market follows mortgages up. So 72% of the population are affected negatively by upward movement on interests rates. And to an extent roughly 10x that of the benefit to savers.
BUT (2) increases in interest rates disproportionately benefit those likely to be voting Tory in the older age groups.
In fact, with political parties funded in this way, just how democratic can we state a country is?
Have we become a 'walk on by' society, where people prefer to watch and gawp than help someone in need?
Iain Dale" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/30/i-collapsed-on-the-tube-nobody-bothered-to-help/
And while it's certainly true that most people there *can* speak at least some Gaelic, it's extremely unusual to hear people speak it conversationally.
It is far less with just a mortgage.
By the same token the low interest rate regime since 2010 has disproportionately penalised the older age groups.
Rental prices should reflect supply and demand for rental property so there is little reason for rental prices to follow mortgage rates and if they do I have to ask how come the market is so imperfect...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Overground
Seems to keep the business people focused on doing the desired things in a way that doesn't happen for rail franchises. The downside of navigating a business by profit is that sometimes there's more to be made by finding corners to cut rather than delivering a sustainably good service.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/05/30/giorgia-meloni-triumphs-elections-strongholds-left-italy/
The stats I find most illuminating are here: https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-11922413/More-people-England-homes-outright-mortgage-rent-figures-reveal.html
UK property is split into three almost equal parts: own outright, rent, own with mortgage.
Who can forget when PB lamented the decline in quality of "supermarket tannoy announcements"
You just don't get nostalgia like that any more
I am 62, and can well remember the 60s and 70s - a time when plenty of private companies were shite too - BMC / British Leyland, BSA spring to mind.
Now if he collapsed in the street I suspect the reaction would have been very different but given where he the general public had little need to help out.
So my reading is that Second homes or Buy-to-Let are (100% - 55.4% - 27.3%) = 17.3% which is still about 10% too high in my view, but more reasonable.
The Cabinet Office has told the Covid-19 inquiry that it cannot hand over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks because it does not possess them.
The inquiry has given the government until Thursday afternoon to explain what measures it has taken to gather the material, postponing a likely legal battle by two days.
In a further complication, Johnson claimed he was happy to pass the documents to the Cabinet Office but that officials had not asked.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cabinet-office-tells-covid-inquiry-it-does-not-have-boris-johnsons-whatsapp-messages-m3q0h2png
But I completely agree - the reverse point is very valid.
But I can't afford to be any more with the state of the world now.
That’s proper nostalgia. None of your NFT lark, that.
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
Phew.
Glad you read it better than I did
The is the actual art to politics and debating politics properly on a forum.
You have left this very clear you believe Labour, Tory, accepting £1.5M donations from anyone on earth is no problem at all for UK democracy.
You know, Jeremy Beedle, Iain Dale, Jolyon Whatsisname, that kind of person.
It'll be a miracle if he collapsed in the street.
Labour leads by 17% in the Red Wall.
Red Wall VI (28 May):
Labour 48% (-4)
Conservative 31% (+2)
Liberal Democrat 7% (–)
Reform UK 7% (–)
Green 4% (–)
Plaid Cymru 1% (–)
Other 1% (+1)
Changes +/- 14 May
Starmer leads Sunak by 8%, his largest lead in the Red Wall since 7 March
At this moment, which of the following do Red Wall voters think would be the better PM for the UK? (28 May)
Starmer 41% (+3)
Sunak 33% (–)
Don't Know 26% (-3)
Changes +/- 14 May
Rishi Sunak's approval rating in the Red Wall is -7%, his joint-highest approval rating in these seats in 2023.
Rishi Sunak Red Wall Net Approval Rating (28 May):
Disapprove: 39% (-2)
Approve: 32% (+4)
Net: -7% (+6)
Changes +/- 14 May
Keir Starmer's approval rating in the Red Wall is +1%, his lowest approval rating in these seats since 4 September 2022 (-5%).
Keir Starmer Red Wall Net Approval Rating (28 May):
Approve: 32% (-3)
Disapprove: 31% (–)
Net: +1% (-3)
Changes +/- 14 May
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton
It seems very likely, on these figures, that the Scottish government is looking at either substantial cuts or significant tax increases or a combination of both in the election year for the Scottish Parliament. Another piece of inspirational planning by Yousless.
You and the others have given quite the pathetic reply to the Daily Mails questioning of Labour’s democratic values actually. For one thing, since 2010 the Tory Party overall have been more susceptible to Chinese use of soft power, splashing their largesse around the world, they get from running a country of slave workers with no rights at all - only appears Boris and his cronies who made the mistake accepting the Russian cash, whilst the parties official policy was to condemn seizure and occupation of Crimea.
Straight away last evening and this afternoon throwing Putin’s money as being the yardstick for all political donations, has been quite pathetic reply from you hasn’t it? There is a fair and serious question here about the funding of our political parties and its impact on our democracy.
Also, what was particularly objectionable about Beadle in RCS's view? He wasn't everyone's taste, but I don't think he did anything to put himself in the distressingly large pantheon of light entertainment total arseholes of the 70s and 80s - maybe I missed the horrible truth, but he seemed alright as a person.
I have accepted Starmer is likely to be PM, and as I will be 80+ with a diamond wedding celebration behind me in Oct 24 the only thing that does excite me is my wonderful family including 5 grandchildren and politics is unlikely to affect me or my wife no matter who is in power
And by the way how much longer are the media going to obsess over the absurd Schofield/ Willoughby story
The result (as is often the case) is that he is going to cop the blame for issues his predecessor created.
One of my earliest memories was walking there amidst vast crowds and noise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bickershaw_Festival
https://twitter.com/jessgill03/status/1663225248945242112?s=20
I also question the concept of “Wall” type polling, because you have to buy into the concept of Walls as “home advantage” as in sport - the truth in the political world is constituency’s trend away from you here and towards you there all the time, for many reasons but particularly demographically and I suspect not just down to one issue things like Brexit. Is Aldershot trending to Labour were what used to be mining areas trending away from them, for example.
And also posting niche polling like this comes across better with comparison with the last general election I think, if we add that here, as Stodge is likely to, it still shows remarkable swings since the last time these constituency’s had General Election votes, such as to imply political earthquake if election was today rather than May 2nd next year.
Rishi Sunak is expected to this week confirm the appointment of a Cambridge professor who is an outspoken opponent of the IHRA definition of antisemitism as his new “free speech tsar.”
Arif Ahmed, who has spoken out against ‘cancel culture’ on campuses, is understood to have accepted the role of Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, with the power to investigate universities which censure academics for their views.
Jewish News revealed earlier this year how Ahmed had personally criticised the IHRA definition claiming it “obstructs perfectly legitimate defence of Palestinian rights.”
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/sunak-expected-to-confirm-anti-ihra-professor-as-his-new-free-speech-tzar/
From the same source as the 37%. Money.co.U.K.
https://twitter.com/RobertBea/status/1663592272972087309
There's no denying it any more
Liz Truss would surprise on the upside was quite special as well.
Bit risky though if we are now providing weapons to attack Russian soil, given Russia is a nuclear weapons power
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ukraine-james-cleverly-estonia-foreign-secretary-moscow-b1084581.html
Also better behaved and politer, and in some ways much nicer and kinder. I was a drunken hoon
But stupider? Absolutely. Their music is shit, their art is shit, they are incapable of original thought, the decline in human intelligence is real, and is accelerating
For the last two months at least, UK businesses have put up prices by more than their costs have risen - the latest data for April shows input prices were up by 3.9%, while output prices increased by 5.4%.
The time is indeed ripe for AI to take over
https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/05/zahawi-misunderstands-why-oxbridge-lowers-grades-for-students-like-me
Fesshole 🧻
@fesshole
I'm an Irish speaker in a very loyalist part of Norn Iron. Back in uni I used to write to my local council annoymously and request government documents be translated to Irish which they had to do. As the only Irish speaker in the area they came to me. Basically paid for my uni.
10:25 PM · Jul 8, 2021
https://twitter.com/fesshole/status/1413247777904238593
Edit to add: there were - of course - plenty of total imbeciles at Cambridge when I was there. People whom one was staggered had made it through A-Levels at all.
·
1h
Britons are hopelessly divided on their toothpaste rituals
Water first, then toothpaste, then water again: 29%
Water first, then toothpaste: 27%
Toothpaste first, then water: 26%
Toothpaste only: 14%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1663570621509296129?s=20
One of her most recent posts. BLM = Buy Luxury Mansions.
I’ll be giving her feed a wide berth.
So the interest rate increase has been immediately passed on (also remortgaging) and I've had to be very apologetic to my friend.
https://twitter.com/julianhjessop/status/1661280117832798210?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
I didn't do calculus until A-Level maths; she's doing it in the equivalent of the old Fourth Year (year nine). My essays - until A-Level - were woeful. She is quite able to write 800 words in proper paragraphs, and with decent structure.
Common sense supports Cleverley’s defence, but it’s another inch in upping the stakes. Hope he’s not just speaking off the cuff.
And only one person there appears unable to communicate coherently.
I’m more worried about the very stupid logic which says that Britain needs to have a completely open door immigration policy “because Empire”.
A graph produced by a Cambridge graduate demonstrates a striking correlation between the wine budgets of Cambridge colleges and the academic attainment of their students.
Kings, St John’s, Trinity and Jesus – the four colleges with an annual wine budget over £200,000 – all obtained more firsts than the collegiate average during the last academic year. With an annual wine expenditure of £14,033 and only 13.2% of students receiving first class degrees, Hughes Hall represents the lowest point on the graph.
King’s College is a notable outlier. Its £338,559 wine budget is the largest of any of the colleges, but it obtained markedly fewer first class degrees than some of its more frugal counterparts. The size of the college’s wine budget has already attracted negative publicity in the weeks since the college’s alcohol outlay was originally made public via a Freedom of Information request. The college’s Living Wage campaigners have adopted the slogan ‘Wages not Wine’ as the rallying cry for their protests.
Grayden Reece-Smith, a student at Churchill College from 2007 to 2010, decided to create the chart after noticing that the colleges with the highest wine budgets were also traditionally those ranked as the best academic performers by in the annual Tompkins Table.
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/6827
https://thetab.com/uk/2019/10/04/the-oxbridge-colleges-admitting-the-most-private-school-kids-127451
I did not know Suella.
I also knew Gavin Barwell and Lucy Frazer from the Union. (And I'm sure I know a few other MPs as well.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_Language_(Northern_Ireland)_Act_2022
It seems to work quite well.
It would be shit if Streeting wasn’t interested in how other countries deal with running a public health system.
We are now talking Oxbridge taking students who actually got 3 Bs at A Level. When I was at school those were the type of grades which would be borderline to get into Leeds or Nottingham, let alone Oxbridge.
I am all for encouraging more pupils from non selective state schools to apply to Oxbridge, doing practice interviews etc but I am sceptical of lowering actual entry requirements to pupils not up to the academic standard normally required. Especially if private school pupils who got 3 A grades + are rejected as a result
(And, fwiw, the poorer the college, the more likely you are to have lots of non-UK students to bolster your revenues.)
Both Stella Creasy and Wes Streeting are attempting to threaten a doctor-led campaign exposing the network of private healthcare firms giving money to politicians.
The fact they're taking such an aggressive stance at being outed tells you exactly what type of people they are.
I seem to remember fairly frequent comments in the past regarding Ruddles being sold cheaply because it had a short date on it.
In fairness, an odd by product is that because of the throughput Spoons cask is still often better than in brewery-tied pubs.
*except that he was right to say publicly that he doesn’t demand that his staff smile and be all fake bonhomie with customers.