In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
Will the Met investigate the party now the video has been released?
Both the Met and the Gray investigations were, frankly, rubbish. The Gray report was pretty poor.
But despite all this many of the officials involved in organising all these rule breaking parties are being honoured. So why would anyone change their behaviour? All we've learnt is that you can behave in the most appalling and dishonest ways possible and still be rewarded - with money and honours - and lucrative new posts, everyone from the PM down.
Even mere incompetence is not enough to stop you getting new posts.
It's those of us who think that competence and integrity should matter who are the mugs, more fools us.
I think being convicted of murder or rape are the only two bars to high office in the UK.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance..
It does - but it always did. Is it better or worse than a generation ago ? My impression (FWIW) is that it's a bit better - am I wrong ?
I see more lip service being paid. But as far as attitudes to women are concerned I think we are in some ways going backwards. There is a self-righteousness about the way anti-women prejudice is expressed now which makes it harder to criticise, in some ways, than old-fashioned assumptions about women's roles.
Feeling justified about hating a group is a lot more dangerous than mere bigotry.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance..
It does - but it always did. Is it better or worse than a generation ago ? My impression (FWIW) is that it's a bit better - am I wrong ?
I see more lip service being paid. But as far as attitudes to women are concerned I think we are in some ways going backwards. There is a self-righteousness about the way anti-women prejudice is expressed now which makes it harder to criticise, in some ways, than old-fashioned assumptions about women's roles.
Yes, attitudes of Andrew Tate etc are far more dangerous than simply being an old fashioned MCP.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance..
It does - but it always did. Is it better or worse than a generation ago ? My impression (FWIW) is that it's a bit better - am I wrong ?
I see more lip service being paid. But as far as attitudes to women are concerned I think we are in some ways going backwards. There is a self-righteousness about the way anti-women prejudice is expressed now which makes it harder to criticise, in some ways, than old-fashioned assumptions about women's roles.
Yes, attitudes of Andrew Tate etc are far more dangerous than simply being an old fashioned MCP.
Incels must have existed when I was growing (Steven King nails an incel’s personality with Harold Lauder) but they were less vocal.
I don’t think that attitudes towards the sexual abuse of minors are any better now, than 30 years ago.
Off topic, anyone else decided to stop buying Warburton's after those epochally ghastly and hastily withdrawn ads they put on a couple of months ago?
I missed that. What are we supposed to boycott them for?
They were radio ads. They included crumpets being compared to sheep, a woman complaining about a breakup for no rhyme or reason I could see, and some colonel (well, actor playing a colonel) complaining that the soldiers from Warburton's toast were showing up his men.
Not even available on Warburton's website now, they were so awful.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
The theory fails based on the words “Johnson” and “working” as we know that working is an alien concept to him.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
Is the story supposed to elicit sympathy - or is it rather a somewhat vivid illustration of the likely economic fallout ?
It's not exactly a tropical case. One thing is true, mortgage rate rises are certainly a conversation topic - I was having beers with some local guys last night and people were bemoaning their forthcoming monthly payment increases. I didn't say anything.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
Surely this is no more than Johnsonian satire. Has Philip Collins been sacked by Starmer yet?
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
Johnson likes to antagonise all the right people. Surely his original honours list including Stan ticked all the boxes.
I do feel for Alok Sharma. He actually seems like a decent bloke who was removed from a deserved honour by Sunak to prevent a by election. And yet Sunak rubber stamped numpty after numpty.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance..
It does - but it always did. Is it better or worse than a generation ago ? My impression (FWIW) is that it's a bit better - am I wrong ?
I see more lip service being paid. But as far as attitudes to women are concerned I think we are in some ways going backwards. There is a self-righteousness about the way anti-women prejudice is expressed now which makes it harder to criticise, in some ways, than old-fashioned assumptions about women's roles.
Yes, attitudes of Andrew Tate etc are far more dangerous than simply being an old fashioned MCP.
Incels must have existed when I was growing (Steven King nails an incel’s personality with Harold Lauder) but they were less vocal.
I don’t think that attitudes towards the sexual abuse of minors are any better now, than 30 years ago.
I think though incels are both more frequent and more likely to be in contact with others via social media.
Laura Bates book "Men Who Hate Women" is quite an uncomfortable read for any man.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
Is the story supposed to elicit sympathy - or is it rather a somewhat vivid illustration of the likely economic fallout ?
It's not exactly a tropical case..
It is a hot issue, though.
The Guardian has an equally strange story. As if it were just mortgage rises that are going to lose the next election. Members in marginal seats are Warbutoned anyway.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
So Trump was way ahead of Andrew Neil. "Britain Trump".
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
Is the story supposed to elicit sympathy - or is it rather a somewhat vivid illustration of the likely economic fallout ?
It's not exactly a tropical case..
It is a hot issue, though.
The Guardian has an equally strange story. As if it were just mortgage rises that are going to lose the next election. Members in marginal seats are Warbutoned anyway.
The traditional media have hardly held the Government's feet to the flame over current and future economic woes. Gilt yields reaching Trussian proportions barely got a mention last week.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Might that not be an understandable reaction against the very dominant position that today's women have created for themselves? And their enormous sense of entitlement. How else do you explain the incels?
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
Is the story supposed to elicit sympathy - or is it rather a somewhat vivid illustration of the likely economic fallout ?
It’s the children I feel sorry for; state school after private, especially if they talk about, could easily lead to bullying. Hope that doesn’t happen.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance..
It does - but it always did. Is it better or worse than a generation ago ? My impression (FWIW) is that it's a bit better - am I wrong ?
I see more lip service being paid. But as far as attitudes to women are concerned I think we are in some ways going backwards. There is a self-righteousness about the way anti-women prejudice is expressed now which makes it harder to criticise, in some ways, than old-fashioned assumptions about women's roles.
Yes, attitudes of Andrew Tate etc are far more dangerous than simply being an old fashioned MCP.
Incels must have existed when I was growing (Steven King nails an incel’s personality with Harold Lauder) but they were less vocal.
I don’t think that attitudes towards the sexual abuse of minors are any better now, than 30 years ago.
Human nature hasn't changed, but I think they possibly are in some respects.
It's a little more than thirty years ago, but at my old school, four teachers ended up with jail terms for sexual abuse of their pupils. But that was several years after they had been asked to leave, having been discovered, and gone on to other schools where they continued their offending.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Might that not be an understandable reaction against the very dominant position that today's women have created for themselves? And their enormous sense of entitlement. How else do you explain the incels?
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
Brillo wrong about something? Has this ever happened before?
Schools are in crisis - why is fixing this not the government's #1 priority?
Because that would mean admitting the problem is the numerous epic fuckups by the government.
We can't afford for these muppets to be in power a moment longer - they are shitting all over my kids' future.
Sadly, even if Labour get in the main problems remain the civil servants involved and that will not change. Indeed, it might actually get worse given the dependence of Labour on the public sector client vote and their tendency to look at the wrong problems.
Ultimately, I am afraid that I do not see things improving short of a major system wide collapse and a reboot, which I would say is likely to happen in three to four years on current trajectory.
I'm not sure they'd improve even then to be honest. Every country I've lived or worked in (which is a fair few now) has had big problems with getting incentives in the public sector right, and many do much worse than we do. There is no equivalent in the public sector to the ever-present threat of bankruptcy in the private sector (and even in the private sector, it is not unknown for mediocrities to be promoted just to keep them quiet or get them out of the way).
But I think the way to ensure that there is as little of this nonsense as possible, or at least that we're not forced to pay for it, is to have government as small and as cheap as possible.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
Brillo wrong about something? Has this ever happened before?
is he pretending his GB News humiliation never happened now?
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
Is the story supposed to elicit sympathy - or is it rather a somewhat vivid illustration of the likely economic fallout ?
It's not exactly a tropical case..
It is a hot issue, though.
The Guardian has an equally strange story. As if it were just mortgage rises that are going to lose the next election. Members in marginal seats are Warbutoned anyway.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?
I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
Only good things happen when the UK is part of a vast European alliance.
Thanks to the Brexiteers we shall be part of La Belle Alliance when we rejoin.
Happy Fathers Day too!
Near perfect day for me.
Just need England to crush the Aussies today.
We need a Broad special this morning with some quick wickets.
And less, or even no, overstepping. It’s good that the third umpire keeps an eye, but surely bowlers of the class of Broad and Stokes should be able to avoid what after all is a fairly elementary error.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Suspect it's about the average not being the whole of the story.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
Brillo wrong about something? Has this ever happened before?
is he pretending his GB News humiliation never happened now?
Pretty sure you’ll get a blocking if you bring it up with him on Twitter.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
I expect we shall see a lot of abstentions on Boris vs the Privileges Committee, with Conservative MPs urgently making dental appointments for the relevant day.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
As someone who would like the Conservatives to put the stain of the Johnson years behind them as a step on their rehab...
Oh boy, they're going to f#£&+ this up, aren't they?
Weak, weak, weak.
they seem terrified that voters will punish them for abandoning BoZo. Read the room, guys...
@steve_hawkes Polling revealed by @ShippersUnbound today on Boris shows… “The red wall prefers Rishi Sunak to him by more than 20 points. He is less popular with the British public than Phillip Schofield and Xi Jinping.”
@iainjwatson But @michaelgove doesn't advocate stripping Shaun Bailey and Ben Mallett (the latter is in the video) of their honours - saying the responsibility for that honours list was @BorisJohnson 's
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Suspect it's about the average not being the whole of the story.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
Yes, I think that true.
I also think "male banter" culture has a part to play in sports clubs, police canteens etc. The culture of jostling for social position via the medium of "banter" emphasises picking on perceived weakness disguised as humour. Others follow, and the target struggles to fight back either because "they cannot take a joke" or because it is behind their back.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
As someone who would like the Conservatives to put the stain of the Johnson years behind them as a step on their rehab...
Oh boy, they're going to f#£&+ this up, aren't they?
Weak, weak, weak.
they seem terrified that voters will punish them for abandoning BoZo. Read the room, guys...
@steve_hawkes Polling revealed by @ShippersUnbound today on Boris shows… “The red wall prefers Rishi Sunak to him by more than 20 points. He is less popular with the British public than Phillip Schofield and Xi Jinping.”
Screaming about unfairness and bias doesn’t go down well with the British character. According to old-fashioned Brits. Take your punishment like a man and move on. At least that was what I was taught, many, many years ago.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Suspect it's about the average not being the whole of the story.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
Yes, I think that true.
I also think "male banter" culture has a part to play in sports clubs, police canteens etc. The culture of jostling for social position via the medium of "banter" emphasises picking on perceived weakness disguised as humour. Others follow, and the target struggles to fight back either because "they cannot take a joke" or because it is behind their back.
Remarkable you managed to avoid the word "bullying" there.
The implosion, or perhaps deflation, of the DeSantis campaign has been remarkable. Mike Pence is next. Could we see Pence rejoin the Trump ticket?
My impression is that on a personal level Pence deeply dislikes Trump now because of January 6th, but he also will 100% support him if he is eventually nominee - not even half heartedly but fully.
So running against Trump is his way of justifying to himself that he tried to stop him, and having failed he can lick boot with a clear conscience.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
What else can they do - admit they have been utterly useless for 2 years and pray that a single 1% increase will solve the problem.
I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action
I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
If the BoE was tasked with controlling housing costs as well as CPI then they might take a different approach.
As it is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
In more "rewards for failure" news, this "honour" by Boris is utterly disgraceful - an award for Alex Chisholm, principal accounting officer for the Post Office 2016-2020, when it tried to stop 555 wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters from getting justice at the High Court.
Far worse than Charlotte Owen to my mind.
WTAF ??
Boris's entire honours list is a WTAF moment.
Some of them were explicable in the context of an amoral narcissist rewarding undeserving cronies. This doesn't even seem to be that.
The only logical interpretation is that Johnson is working a secret Republican agenda to destroy the HoL and honours system by completely discrediting it.
That assumes Johnson acts logically.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
Andrew Neil said on telly the other day that he'd always resisted the comparison between the two leaders but now Boris clearly was behaving in a Trumpian manner.
At his worst he could be Trumpy, but on policy and background he was more complex. As Neil suggests when at his lowest ebb, lashing out in chaotic and uncaring fashion, full of conspiracy, the parallels rise.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
As ever the problem is rampantly inflated house prices. Interest rates of 4 or 5% were the complete norm only a generation ago. We should have taken a proper property price correction back after 2008 and interest rates should have been edged up from 2017 onwards. Because we didn’t and instead people gorged on another ten years of cheap credit it’s going to be much more painful now than it need have been.
My current 2.3% fixed deal expires at the end of the month. I’ve fixed for another 5 years at 4.63%. That’s not too painful. But then I never over-reached.
Anecdote from a friend. In Shifnal, near to us, there has been a tremendous amount of new building. At the moment the 4/5 bed houses are pouring back onto the market as buyers are finding they’ve overreached.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
What else can they do - admit they have been utterly useless for 2 years and pray that a single 1% increase will solve the problem.
I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action
I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
The important thing is to get the rate of inflation below the rate of wage growth.
People having kittens because wages are rising at 7% are being silly.
Far better to have wages growing at 7% and inflation at 5% (which is roughly where we’ll be by the Autumn) than inflation at 3% and wages at 2%.
People always moan about honours. It is very Boris that because of how divisive he is he might well tip over the balance of views by doing the same thing as others.
Dorries was far from the worst proposed peer after all.
Interesting interview on R4 with Sir Howard Davies who has worked at the treasury and the Bank of England
'Why is inflation across our economy significantly higher than both the Eurozone and the US......'
Answers on a postcard please.......
Define significantly. And is it across the eurozone as a whole, or all countries within the eurozone? Facts please. Oh, no point in asking, your just upset that you have to queue longer en route to you french house.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
Idiotic, if true.
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
Frit, which is bad.
Frit of the loud minority rather than the quiet majority, which is worse.
Not only is Johnson now behaving like Trump, the Tory party is responding to his behaviour in the mealy mouthed manner of the GOP.
Not really - they removed him as leader and a majority of MPs didn't want him back, even if 1/3 did. They seem more wearied by him even if not openly hostile.
I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.
The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain
The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.
Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”
If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
Quite. I think one of the servants of the junior butler owns a home that cheap, to keep his shoes in. I shall ask the head butler if pay rises are required. Again.
Interesting interview on R4 with Sir Howard Davies who has worked at the treasury and the Bank of England
'Why is inflation across our economy significantly higher than both the Eurozone and the US......'
Answers on a postcard please.......
Define significantly. And is it across the eurozone as a whole, or all countries within the eurozone? Facts please. Oh, no point in asking, your just upset that you have to queue longer en route to you french house.
Average inflation is lower across the EZ, but so is average wage growth.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of o
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
Idiotic, if true.
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
Frit, which is bad.
Frit of the loud minority rather than the quiet majority, which is worse.
Not only is Johnson now behaving like Trump, the Tory party is responding to his behaviour in the mealy mouthed manner of the GOP.
Not really - they removed him as leader and a majority of MPs didn't want him back, even if 1/3 did.
They’re facilitating the narrative that the Privileges Committee were following a party political agenda. And that is unhelpful to anyone who values integrity in public office.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
The Government and the BoE have a fairly sparsely equipped toolbox with which to attack inflation, specifically the hammer of interest rate hikes. What did John Major say? "If it's not hurting, it's not working". Anyway offset this with massive tax cuts for the wealthy a couple of months before the GE and you and the Tories will be fine.
A telling bit of that piece: he later faced criticism for failing to clamp down heavily enough on the City during the buildup to the crash of 2008. “At the time, people moaned about financial regulation being too tight and that I was judge and jury in my own court,” he says. “I was accused of being an overmighty regulator who was getting in the way of ‘animal spirits’. There was never any criticism in the other direction.”
You see this kind of thing on here. A few voices harshly criticising the actions of the BoE over recent years, nobody speaking in the other direction. Where are those voices? Can it really be that the only one who think what the BoE have done is right are the BoE themselves? If that's the case, how do you explain such a concentration of such a minority view? Coincidence? Malice?
Likelier, there are a range of views out there in the wild, but we aren't getting them here.
Both are interesting possibilities. And as Davies knows, it's consequential when you only hear one side of the argument. Very consequential.
Will the Met investigate the party now the video has been released?
Both the Met and the Gray investigations were, frankly, rubbish. The Gray report was pretty poor.
But despite all this many of the officials involved in organising all these rule breaking parties are being honoured. So why would anyone change their behaviour? All we've learnt is that you can behave in the most appalling and dishonest ways possible and still be rewarded - with money and honours - and lucrative new posts, everyone from the PM down.
Even mere incompetence is not enough to stop you getting new posts.
It's those of us who think that competence and integrity should matter who are the mugs, more fools us.
NU10K - it wouldn’t be fair *not* to give them their gongs.
As for accountability, I understand a number of junior people lost their jobs - doesn’t that cover that issue?
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.
I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
What else can they do - admit they have been utterly useless for 2 years and pray that a single 1% increase will solve the problem.
I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action
I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
The important thing is to get the rate of inflation below the rate of wage growth.
People having kittens because wages are rising at 7% are being silly.
Far better to have wages growing at 7% and inflation at 5% (which is roughly where we’ll be by the Autumn) than inflation at 3% and wages at 2%.
Well, that's because it's better to have productivity growth at 2% than -1%. But wage spirals can push inflation, so it's rarely as simple as paying yourself whatever you like. Whether in this case or not is an economic question.
"I'm not asking about procedures. I'm asking if you think the people in this photo should receive honours."
Michael Gove's car crash interview with Sophy Ridge on the party video with Shaun Bailey and Ben Mallet who were given honours by Boris Johnson, approved by Rishi Sunak.
Sunak is disappointingly weak on Johnson. He should bury him, but he doesn’t. I wonder why. He’s not that vulnerable in the party.
It's fear most likely. For example, is Boris so amazingly popular in the country at large that he could set up his own party in a fit of pique and condemn the Tories to oblivion? Probably not, but Rishi doesn't know this for sure and is scared witless.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
"I'm not being rude to you, but ..."
Who was it, who said something like - in a sentence everything before the “but” was bullshit?
Will the Met investigate the party now the video has been released?
Both the Met and the Gray investigations were, frankly, rubbish. The Gray report was pretty poor.
But despite all this many of the officials involved in organising all these rule breaking parties are being honoured. So why would anyone change their behaviour? All we've learnt is that you can behave in the most appalling and dishonest ways possible and still be rewarded - with money and honours - and lucrative new posts, everyone from the PM down.
Even mere incompetence is not enough to stop you getting new posts.
It's those of us who think that competence and integrity should matter who are the mugs, more fools us.
Did you read all 60 pages?
I thought she did pretty well. Almost written in real time.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
Idiotic, if true.
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
Voting against is just dumb - it will pass, and Boris quitting already means they could vote against and say privately it was just for show, there was no need to 'save' him as he was already gone.
I think Gove has just given up anyway, he no longer even has ideas, which used to make him interesting.
Sunak is disappointingly weak on Johnson. He should bury him, but he doesn’t. I wonder why. He’s not that vulnerable in the party.
He is.
He's not going to be ousted, but no one really backs him much either
Given that Johnson & Co. are methodically pouring yet another round of petrol over their heads and striking matches… Why should Sunak do more than make sure he (and his) is at a safe distance?
I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
The Government and the BoE have a fairly sparsely equipped toolbox with which to attack inflation, specifically the hammer of interest rate hikes. What did John Major say? "If it's not hurting, it's not working". Anyway offset this with massive tax cuts for the wealthy a couple of months before the GE and you and the Tories will be fine.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
Idiotic, if true.
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
How many years have I been saying Gove is an idiot?
Actually, that’s a bit harsh. He’s not a Cummings, who is genuinely rather dim. Instead, he’s fairly bright but very dogmatic. If things conflict with his worldview, his worldview wins. You can imagine 150 years ago he would have been a creationist dissing Darwin.
Here we see it again. Johnson doesn’t deserve an entirely theoretical 90 day suspension, therefore the report must be wrong.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Suspect it's about the average not being the whole of the story.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
Yep, the downside of interconnected world thing. Instead of having a racist pen pal from whom one might receive a letter a couple of times a year, a kid can hook up with hundreds if not thousands of social media accounts pumping out propaganda that would make Goebbels blush.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.
I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
Idiotic, if true.
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
Frit, which is bad.
Frit of the loud minority rather than the quiet majority, which is worse.
Not only is Johnson now behaving like Trump, the Tory party is responding to his behaviour in the mealy mouthed manner of the GOP.
Not really - they removed him as leader and a majority of MPs didn't want him back, even if 1/3 did. They seem more wearied by him even if not openly hostile.
Yes really.
This is like the GOP voting to acquit in the second Trump impeachment.
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson. Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
As someone who would like the Conservatives to put the stain of the Johnson years behind them as a step on their rehab...
Oh boy, they're going to f#£&+ this up, aren't they?
Weak, weak, weak.
they seem terrified that voters will punish them for abandoning BoZo. Read the room, guys...
@steve_hawkes Polling revealed by @ShippersUnbound today on Boris shows… “The red wall prefers Rishi Sunak to him by more than 20 points. He is less popular with the British public than Phillip Schofield and Xi Jinping.”
He doesn't need to be very popular to destroy any faint hope Sunak has. Like it not taking a strong missile to sink a ship that's already sinking.
He needs an open vote on the report and praying that most see no point on a performative vote against.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Suspect it's about the average not being the whole of the story.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
Yep, the downside of interconnected world thing. Instead of having a racist pen pal from whom one might receive a letter a couple of times a year, a kid can hook up with hundreds if not thousands of social media accounts pumping out propaganda that would make Goebbels blush.
The problem is that many people don’t self examine their beliefs of the moment. Which they change like socks, depending on Tik Tok.
Since everyone is the Hero of Their Own Tale, they must be Good.
One thing I’ve tried to teach my daughters is to compare their own views with history - very little is new.
Sunak is disappointingly weak on Johnson. He should bury him, but he doesn’t. I wonder why. He’s not that vulnerable in the party.
He is.
He's not going to be ousted, but no one really backs him much either
Given that Johnson & Co. are methodically pouring yet another round of petrol over their heads and striking matches… Why should Sunak do more than make sure he (and his) is at a safe distance?
There is no safe distance. He is them and they are him.
He cannot avoid the burn, they know it, and its why the mealy mouthed reaction.
I've just watched this viral video of partying at CCHQ during Bailey's mayoral campaign. It's absolutely criminal. A crime against fashion. A crime against dancing. And criminal party food, by the looks of it. It looks like a 1970s tribute party for posh boys and girls.
Us lefties had more fun discussing Marxist dialectics over a joint, I reckon.
In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.
“I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”
“Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.
The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.
I’m Gen X.
Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.
I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.
Comments
I don’t think that attitudes towards the sexual abuse of minors are any better now, than 30 years ago.
Not even available on Warburton's website now, they were so awful.
Experience suggests this is an unwise assumption.
I do feel for Alok Sharma. He actually seems like a decent bloke who was removed from a deserved honour by Sunak to prevent a by election. And yet Sunak rubber stamped numpty after numpty.
Laura Bates book "Men Who Hate Women" is quite an uncomfortable read for any man.
The Guardian has an equally strange story. As if it were just mortgage rises that are going to lose the next election. Members in marginal seats are Warbutoned anyway.
Mortgage ‘catastrophe’ will lose us the election, warn Tory MPs
Members in marginal seats fear Conservative party leaders have not understood the impact of rate rises
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/18/mortgage-catastrophe-will-lose-us-the-election-warn-tory-mp
Hope that doesn’t happen.
And Good Morning everyone.
Only good things happen when the UK is part of a vast European alliance.
Thanks to the Brexiteers we shall be part of La Belle Alliance when we rejoin.
It's a little more than thirty years ago, but at my old school, four teachers ended up with jail terms for sexual abuse of their pupils.
But that was several years after they had been asked to leave, having been discovered, and gone on to other schools where they continued their offending.
Just need England to crush the Aussies today.
But I think the way to ensure that there is as little of this nonsense as possible, or at least that we're not forced to pay for it, is to have government as small and as cheap as possible.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/18/death-from-overwork-young-koreans-rebel-against-culture-of-long-hours
...The last straw for some came in March with the government’s proposal to revise the working hours system, permitting up to 69 hours a week. The current law allows the basic 40-hour working-week principle to be applied to companies, with overtime limited to a maximum of 12 hours, though exceptions do exist...
Lib Dems open as 1/4 favourites to take the upcoming by-election in Somerton & Frome
.@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson.
Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.
@jessphillips
Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.
The kind of casual mass-market racism of our childhoods is rarer and shallower, I think. But the extremes, often driven by online media are probably both nastier and a bit more widespread than when they disseminated by cheaply printed leaflets.
'Why is inflation across our economy significantly higher than both the Eurozone and the US......'
Answers on a postcard please.......
Oh boy, they're going to f#£&+ this up, aren't they?
Weak, weak, weak.
@steve_hawkes
Polling revealed by @ShippersUnbound today on Boris shows… “The red wall prefers Rishi Sunak to him by more than 20 points. He is less popular with the British public than Phillip Schofield and Xi Jinping.”
But @michaelgove doesn't advocate stripping Shaun Bailey and Ben Mallett (the latter is in the video) of their honours - saying the responsibility for that honours list was @BorisJohnson 's
I also think "male banter" culture has a part to play in sports clubs, police canteens etc. The culture of jostling for social position via the medium of "banter" emphasises picking on perceived weakness disguised as humour. Others follow, and the target struggles to fight back either because "they cannot take a joke" or because it is behind their back.
I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.
They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.
Take your punishment like a man and move on.
At least that was what I was taught, many, many years ago.
So running against Trump is his way of justifying to himself that he tried to stop him, and having failed he can lick boot with a clear conscience.
I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action
I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
As it is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
......here's something he wrote last month which shows his unsuitability to be considered an impartial 'financial expert' on the BBC
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/21/natwests-sir-howard-davies-im-quite-pessimistic-brexit-was-a-significant-mistake
Frit of the loud minority rather than the quiet majority, which is worse.
But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
So one less by election to worry about if so.
"Not another one??" - Brenda from Bristol.
My current 2.3% fixed deal expires at the end of the month. I’ve fixed for another 5 years at 4.63%. That’s not too painful. But then I never over-reached.
Anecdote from a friend. In Shifnal, near to us, there has been a tremendous amount of new building. At the moment the 4/5 bed houses are pouring back onto the market as buyers are finding they’ve overreached.
Sunak fans please explain this cowardice?
People having kittens because wages are rising at 7% are being silly.
Far better to have wages growing at 7% and inflation at 5% (which is roughly where we’ll be by the Autumn) than inflation at 3% and wages at 2%.
Dorries was far from the worst proposed peer after all.
Facts please.
Oh, no point in asking, your just upset that you have to queue longer en route to you french house.
he later faced criticism for failing to clamp down heavily enough on the City during the buildup to the crash of 2008. “At the time, people moaned about financial regulation being too tight and that I was judge and jury in my own court,” he says. “I was accused of being an overmighty regulator who was getting in the way of ‘animal spirits’. There was never any criticism in the other direction.”
You see this kind of thing on here. A few voices harshly criticising the actions of the BoE over recent years, nobody speaking in the other direction. Where are those voices? Can it really be that the only one who think what the BoE have done is right are the BoE themselves? If that's the case, how do you explain such a concentration of such a minority view? Coincidence? Malice?
Likelier, there are a range of views out there in the wild, but we aren't getting them here.
Both are interesting possibilities. And as Davies knows, it's consequential when you only hear one side of the argument. Very consequential.
As for accountability, I understand a number of junior people lost their jobs - doesn’t that cover that issue?
He's not going to be ousted, but no one really backs him much either
I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.
https://www.prfe.education/
"I'm not asking about procedures. I'm asking if you think the people in this photo should receive honours."
Michael Gove's car crash interview with Sophy Ridge on the party video with Shaun Bailey and Ben Mallet who were given honours by Boris Johnson, approved by Rishi Sunak.
https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1670338263465197570
https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1670354435908804608
I thought she did pretty well. Almost written in real time.
I think Gove has just given up anyway, he no longer even has ideas, which used to make him interesting.
Actually, that’s a bit harsh. He’s not a Cummings, who is genuinely rather dim. Instead, he’s fairly bright but very dogmatic. If things conflict with his worldview, his worldview wins. You can imagine 150 years ago he would have been a creationist dissing Darwin.
Here we see it again. Johnson doesn’t deserve an entirely theoretical 90 day suspension, therefore the report must be wrong.
Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
This is like the GOP voting to acquit in the second Trump impeachment.
He needs an open vote on the report and praying that most see no point on a performative vote against.
He has no idea how many cards he will receive.
Since everyone is the Hero of Their Own Tale, they must be Good.
One thing I’ve tried to teach my daughters is to compare their own views with history - very little is new.
He cannot avoid the burn, they know it, and its why the mealy mouthed reaction.
Us lefties had more fun discussing Marxist dialectics over a joint, I reckon.
It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.