'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
I think the main difference between the old and the new elite is that the old elite was mostly honest, whereas the new elite is often dishonest. The old elite never pretended to be anything other than what it was. The new elite is often pretending to be other than what it actually is.
I'm not sure that's true, at least since the invention of newspapers. Who was the American billionaire at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries who had very good media management and cultivated an image of benefitor of the poor? I think it was Carnegie, but happy to be corrected.
Scots-American. Libraries all over Scotland, a Carnegie fund which is still working, etc. etc. Edit: all very muich self-help, wortk hard and you can be a rich bastard like me etc. (NB. Have not read his writings in detail to check how far he qualified that message.)
His idea of a holiday but and ben was Skibo Castle.
The Carnegie Birthplace is quite something, to be seen on a day out to Dunfermline besides the abbey and palace.
He was born in *one* of those two weaver's cottages. To which he added this commeorative extension ...
And he funded the Diplodocus dinosaur skeleton excavation, now in the museum at Pittsburgh, and the many plaster casts given to crowned heads (in preference) across the world.
Though not sure about his PR skills re such things as the Pittsburgh steel strike and armed putdown.
Yes I think that's the fella, thank you. "Look I am wonderful! I have built things for the poor, who love me. Huzzah for Carnegie!" whilst breaking striker's knees with baseball bats.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
Although the "cyclists need insurance" brigade do have a point. Liability insurance for cyclists is quite sensible.
Adult cyclists who cycle on pavements, which is unlawful, with a "get out of my way, pedestrian scum" attitude, being too wimpy and scared to ride on the roads, need bans slapped on them by magistrates. (It would only take a few Cambridge fellows to feel the long arm of the law for the others to feel "encouraged".)
Guidance from the Police Chief's Association accepts that adults cycling on pavements is OK, when the road is too dangerous, and it is done considerately - as in the vast majority of cases. Guidance was issued in 1999 by the Home Secretary when it became an "offence", and reaffirmed in 2014. The recent case of the manslaughter of the elderly cyclist demonstrates the need, until such time as we have safe facilities everywhere:
The "cyclists need insurance" brigade have no point whatsoever, except in their own sawdust-filled heads.
Lability insurance for people riding bikes usually comes for free with a home contents policy. Some of us have extra insurance via memberships or specialist policies. I have that because I know many motorist vehicle drivers will lie to the police and then lie to the court, and I will need ferocious lawyers should the worst happen, potentially for a civil claim.
These insurance companies include liability insurance in their Home Contents policies:
Apologies for introducing evidence to the debate.
Normally placid people go absolutely bonkers when it comes to cyclists. It's utterly barmy and baffling.
The worst cyclists on the streets of London are without doubt the Just Eat/Deliveroo ones. Most cyclists at least look left then right before going through red lights - the food delivery ones don't even do this.
And I'm the idiot who stops at all the red lights as I see 83% of other cyclists race through them past me.
The powered scooter Just Eats are even worse – appear from behind a tree/wheelie bin and cut up every road user in the postcode.
My niece only yesterday got knocked down by a food delivery company e-bike rider when crossing a pedestrian crossing in London (light was green for pedestrians). Didn't stop and went on their way. She is ok but got lots of brusing and cuts down her arm. Black cabby apparently jumped out his cab to shout and swear at the rider whilst several others stopped to help her.
Obviously no registration plate on the e-bike to track down. She is going to raise it with the well known food delivery company. There is a strong case for registration plates of some description for e-bikes and e-scooters in my view.
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
Malcolm is a word which has got me banned twice. So I will call him a fucktard instead
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
I partly agree, and partly very much disagree. We could have an economic system that protects the elderly and the young. Instead a concerted effort by those in power to cater specifically to the elderly has rotted the brains of many a boomer. Yes, there is intergenerational warfare, but it is not the elderly who are to blame, rather the capitalist indoctrination they have been fed over decades. I would also argue that lock down was good, as a 32 year old who caught covid last year and is still feeling the negative effects of Long Covid, and imagining how much worse that would be personally if I wasn't vaxxed / got it pre-vax, and how much worse off everyone would be if that was repeated across the entire population.
Maybe I'm biased coz I love my grandparents dearly and they are both not quite boomers, having been children during WW2 rather than being born after it and are also pretty lefty themselves; my Great Nan having literally hosted Communist meetings in her council house kitchen in the post war era.
We should have resisted and gone about our lives. What a complete shower. Fuck Johnson, fuck Rishi and fuck the Tories. And fuck Labour too for good measure.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
Malcolm is a word which has got me banned twice. So I will call him a fucktard instead
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
Some of those on the boat were explorers, one had been to the edge of space and held the record for the longest duration at full ocean depth for a crewed vessel. Just because they knew the risks does not mean we should not mourn their potential passing, they were natural risk takers but then if humanity never took risks it would never explore or find new things.
Economic migrants also take risks crossing the seas and channel when it would be safer on that score to stay in their home county doesn't mean we don't also mourn their loss if their boats sink and they drown
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
I partly agree, and partly very much disagree. We could have an economic system that protects the elderly and the young. Instead a concerted effort by those in power to cater specifically to the elderly has rotted the brains of many a boomer. Yes, there is intergenerational warfare, but it is not the elderly who are to blame, rather the capitalist indoctrination they have been fed over decades. I would also argue that lock down was good, as a 32 year old who caught covid last year and is still feeling the negative effects of Long Covid, and imagining how much worse that would be personally if I wasn't vaxxed / got it pre-vax, and how much worse off everyone would be if that was repeated across the entire population.
Maybe I'm biased coz I love my grandparents dearly and they are both not quite boomers, having been children during WW2 rather than being born after it and are also pretty lefty themselves; my Great Nan having literally hosted Communist meetings in her council house kitchen in the post war era.
I didn't say all elderly people, I said some. The ones who call me lazy and feckless for a start, fuck them.
I believe me putting my life on hold was a waste of time and I bitterly regret doing it out of kindness. I really do at this point with some of the shit these people say to me.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
I don't know what anyone on the site looks like, but I have my own mental images. In Malcolm's case, it's Father Jack from Father Ted, but with a Scottish accent.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Proportional representation is the best hope for shaking up British politics. I'm hoping it happens, even though it'll give lots of seats to parties I don't agree with like the Greens.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
Not this time.
Even if Labour screw it up, which they probably will, the Conservatives deserve evisceration. The continuing criminal investigations and yet further revelations of abject unfitness for office will keep reminding people that the crisis was Torydom´s last act.
Against all expert views, you got your ridiculous Brexit, now I hope its your political epitaph.
Eviscerate the Tories and it will be a Faragite party that replaces them and when the Right get into power it will be a really nasty Nationalist government from your perspective that will make this government look like LDs
You say that as if that would just be the natural outcome or it would happen in a vacuum. Like it's just a consequence of a law of physics rather than a concerted political effort that people choose to make.
This is why socialists argue "socialism or barbarism". The right and centre (and capital) are much more willing to make peace with the far right than they are to give up an inch and move slightly further left. Corbyn had many faults, but his policy positions were not that radical in the grand scheme of history. They are radical now, but that's because the base line of acceptable policy is anything to the left of Thatcher / Blair on the economy is literal Communism. The outrage at the idea that maybe having functional broadband infrastructure for a modern economy as "Broadband Communism" when it was just... infrastructure spending to boost productivity and economic growth, something the New Deal would have done if it were implemented today. I know New Dealism was, at the time, considered a Communist plot by some of the most frothing at the brain right wingers, but what it did was create the broad base working and middle class of a functioning capitalist society by allowing the rich to still get very rich, but making sure that wealth was redistributed to smooth out too much profit seeking and labour discipline. It saved capitalism from itself - boom and bust cycles, monopolies and Robber Barons. That we are closer to the Gilded age then we are the post-war consensus is telling.
No we aren't. We have an NHS, unemployment benefits even non contributory via UC, a minimum wage, 40% going to university.
We didn't have any of the above in the 1920s, indeed the Poor Law wasn't repealed and Workhouses weren't formally abolished until 1948
The level of hypocrisy on this board is astonishing.
It peaked when you called someone else an attention seeker yesterday
Je Suis Horse
Why don't you engage in the conversation whilst going off on a tangent?
Can nobody here get satire seriously? I was obviously taking the piss out of Leon going off on his tangents, Jesus Christ didn't realise I needed to label the joke.
It seems like we are now going to pay the price for not having a proper reset post-2008. That was when we should have turned away from running the economy on perpetual house price inflation but instead we doubled-down.
Rishi Sunak will get the blame, but from a Tory perspective it was Cameron's coalition government that really blew the chance to sort out the economy.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Proportional representation is the best hope for shaking up British politics. I'm hoping it happens, even though it'll give lots of seats to parties I don't agree with like the Greens.
My 88 year old father was a keen remainer. He’s largely a rentier this stage, although for reasons he has a small mortgage still.
I think he is in the pre-boomer generation which saw closer integration with the EU as good both in terms of greater freedom and as a response to the War.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
I don't know what anyone on the site looks like, but I have my own mental images. In Malcolm's case, it's Father Jack from Father Ted, but with a Scottish accent.
It seems like we are now going to pay the price for not having a proper reset post-2008. That was when we should have turned away from running the economy on perpetual house price inflation but instead we doubled-down.
Rishi Sunak will get the blame, but from a Tory perspective it was Cameron's coalition government that really blew the chance to sort out the economy.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
All about context aint it? I do recall some PBers revelling in the no doubt frequently unpleasant deaths of Russian conscripts being fed into the mincing machine. I imagine most of them had families and friends.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Re: your mortgage affordability I have great sympathy but without meaning to pry I shall pry and ask whether you are interest only or repayment?
I've only ever had a interest-only mortgage and consequently have very low monthly costs with large tolerance for rates increasing - and I reduce capital in chunks on an ad hoc basis. I'm wondering whether people with repayment mortgages realise this is an option with lenders (there may need to be some equity in the property). The other thing to consider is extending the term.
How about some sympathy for what we are going through. Anyone?
I have my own view of the c-words on here. Doesn’t include Malcom.
I am sure I am high on the list of c words on this board for some - but at this point I frankly don't care. Would rather be myself and fight the corner of young people that get so bitterly attacked here every day from a select few.
Although the "cyclists need insurance" brigade do have a point. Liability insurance for cyclists is quite sensible.
Adult cyclists who cycle on pavements, which is unlawful, with a "get out of my way, pedestrian scum" attitude, being too wimpy and scared to ride on the roads, need bans slapped on them by magistrates. (It would only take a few Cambridge fellows to feel the long arm of the law for the others to feel "encouraged".)
Guidance from the Police Chief's Association accepts that adults cycling on pavements is OK, when the road is too dangerous, and it is done considerately - as in the vast majority of cases. Guidance was issued in 1999 by the Home Secretary when it became an "offence", and reaffirmed in 2014. The recent case of the manslaughter of the elderly cyclist demonstrates the need, until such time as we have safe facilities everywhere:
The "cyclists need insurance" brigade have no point whatsoever, except in their own sawdust-filled heads.
Lability insurance for people riding bikes usually comes for free with a home contents policy. Some of us have extra insurance via memberships or specialist policies. I have that because I know many motorist vehicle drivers will lie to the police and then lie to the court, and I will need ferocious lawyers should the worst happen, potentially for a civil claim.
These insurance companies include liability insurance in their Home Contents policies:
Apologies for introducing evidence to the debate.
Normally placid people go absolutely bonkers when it comes to cyclists. It's utterly barmy and baffling.
As someone who walks, cycles and drives, I'd put it like this: cycling on pavements is okay *at times*. Forcing pedestrians on pavements to make way for you *is not okay*, especially if you are going it at speed.
And this happens a lot. It is all about consideration for others: cyclists want (reasonably) to be treated with respect by other road users. They should also consider other road - and pavement - users. This seems a strange concept to some of the cycling lobby, for whom the main demand appears to be for *them* to get as quickly from A to B as they can, and sod anyone else.
Yep. Agreed (as cyclist, driver and pedestrian).
Basic rule - look after the person slower/more vulnerable than you and be patient. If you're a driver, that means cyclists, pedestrians, horses etc. If you're a cyclist it means pedestrians. Hell, if you're a pedestrian it means getting out of the way of the doddery old lady with the stick coming towards you.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
What a pile of crap. People have had very cheap mortgages for over a decade paid for by millions getting nil returns on their savings. You would have to be seriously dim to expect that to last for ever. Likewise both COVID and Ukraine have given very loud and clear warnings that a big bill was coming down the road. The lack of personal responsibility has reached epidemic proportions. The market always kicks in at some point. Welcome to the real world.
Let me guess: you have lots of cash savings but no mortgage?
I think the big mistake has been not raising rates gradually, from about 2013 or so. I think that would have cooled the housing market, without running the risk of having people repossessed, when mortgage rates spike.
I know from personal experience, from thirty years ago, just how worrying this is.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Hang on, I think I noticed yesterday it was that intellectual colossus called Malcolm who made some rant about how all young people are lazy. You said nothing, like so many people on here who are terrified of standing up to the loud mothed bully.
If it came from MalcolmG we probably ignored it as the whingeing of an old (I'm alright, Jock) man...
The amusing thing was that he referred to young people as "whingers". It is rare to come across someone with so little self awareness and propensity for psychological projection.
I don't know what anyone on the site looks like, but I have my own mental images. In Malcolm's case, it's Father Jack from Father Ted, but with a Scottish accent.
Yes but Father Jack was actually funny. Malcolm is a bore.
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Different lives. My parents (now in their late 70's and early 80's) grew up in an era before easy credit, but at a time when buying a house was possible, and only one parent needed to work, so mum stayed at home until us kids were at school. We only holidayed in England, but we did get away. Life was generally simpler. If you wanted stuff you had to save up, but generally there was a lot less stuff to buy.
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy, and just 'not having that latte' isn't the answer.
That said, despite the struggles for the youngsters today, there are compensations. Modern life is great, for the most part, for most people. I don't think many would seriously want to be sent back in time to the 1960's, when my parents were becoming adults.
The level of hypocrisy on this board is astonishing.
It peaked when you called someone else an attention seeker yesterday
Je Suis Horse
Why don't you engage in the conversation whilst going off on a tangent?
Can nobody here get satire seriously? I was obviously taking the piss out of Leon going off on his tangents, Jesus Christ didn't realise I needed to label the joke.
I think everyone on here takes your jokes seriously..
Well they shouldn't. My sense of humour in general is sarcasm. So please be aware of that, since my mental health has improved over the last year I've been able to withstand mostly everything thrown at me as I used to be able to.
Sorry you didn't get the joke - but it was intended ass one.
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
What a pile of crap. People have had very cheap mortgages for over a decade paid for by millions getting nil returns on their savings. You would have to be seriously dim to expect that to last for ever. Likewise both COVID and Ukraine have given very loud and clear warnings that a big bill was coming down the road. The lack of personal responsibility has reached epidemic proportions. The market always kicks in at some point. Welcome to the real world.
Let me guess: you have lots of cash savings but no mortgage?
I think the big mistake has been not raising rates gradually, from about 2013 or so. I think that would have cooled the housing market, without running the risk of having people repossessed, when mortgage rates spike.
I know from personal experience, from thirty years ago, just how worrying this is.
Yep, it's not rocket science. At the latest, rates should have started to go up as oil prices tumbled in autumn 2014.
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
Of course they are human beings; hubris is something that can only happen to humans.
People die every day, sometimes tragically. 500 migrants die in a boat of the coast of Greece and some people in this country look at that as good, and want to see more of that happen in the Channel.
Orca posting, not caring about this submarine, people celebrating when bad people die happens because lots of people recognise that lots of really rich people aren't happy that they have immense wealth, but that we have to treat them like royalty as well. To which I say bollocks. Most people cannot dream of quarter of a million pounds. Of course seeing people spending that when you can barely pay rent or feed your kids or enjoy life will lead to some of these reactions.
We should have resisted and gone about our lives. What a complete shower. Fuck Johnson, fuck Rishi and fuck the Tories. And fuck Labour too for good measure.
Labour was the main cheerleader, of course.
Interesting to see some influential minds are changing:
We should have resisted and gone about our lives. What a complete shower. Fuck Johnson, fuck Rishi and fuck the Tories. And fuck Labour too for good measure.
Labour was the main cheerleader, of course.
Interesting to see some influential minds are changing:
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
The 5% raise is just the latest kick in the teeth. I do not know how I am going to afford my mortgage when my fixed rate ends, I have no confidence the next lot will help me.
Aspire to own a home they said, I worked hard, got a better job, got a pay rise and I get fucked over. The elderly get a free ride.
The 5% raise is just the latest kick in the teeth. I do not know how I am going to afford my mortgage when my fixed rate ends, I have no confidence the next lot will help me.
Aspire to own a home they said, I worked hard, got a better job, got a pay rise and I get fucked over. The elderly get a free ride.
I should migrate. I really should.
How long have you got till that particular kick in the teeth day ?
The 5% raise is just the latest kick in the teeth. I do not know how I am going to afford my mortgage when my fixed rate ends, I have no confidence the next lot will help me.
Aspire to own a home they said, I worked hard, got a better job, got a pay rise and I get fucked over. The elderly get a free ride.
I should migrate. I really should.
Why don’t you then ?
If I was young I would.
Because I can't afford to. Right now the jobs market is in a bad place and moving now would be a big risk for me.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
Lockdown was successful at saving lives, I never disagreed with that. I cheerlead for them after all.
They were pointless because the impact on the country has been worse than if we'd not bothered. If you are under 45 honestly what has been the upside?
The 5% raise is just the latest kick in the teeth. I do not know how I am going to afford my mortgage when my fixed rate ends, I have no confidence the next lot will help me.
Aspire to own a home they said, I worked hard, got a better job, got a pay rise and I get fucked over. The elderly get a free ride.
I should migrate. I really should.
Why don’t you then ?
If I was young I would.
Jeez, so would I. Trouble is later in life with family and elderly parents and network of friends it's nowhere near as doable.
The 5% raise is just the latest kick in the teeth. I do not know how I am going to afford my mortgage when my fixed rate ends, I have no confidence the next lot will help me.
Aspire to own a home they said, I worked hard, got a better job, got a pay rise and I get fucked over. The elderly get a free ride.
I should migrate. I really should.
How long have you got till that particular kick in the teeth day ?
A while yet - but I have absolutely no confidence this issue is going to be resolved.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
That's a bit head I win, tails you lose, logic by you there though.
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
I partly agree, and partly very much disagree. We could have an economic system that protects the elderly and the young. Instead a concerted effort by those in power to cater specifically to the elderly has rotted the brains of many a boomer. Yes, there is intergenerational warfare, but it is not the elderly who are to blame, rather the capitalist indoctrination they have been fed over decades. I would also argue that lock down was good, as a 32 year old who caught covid last year and is still feeling the negative effects of Long Covid, and imagining how much worse that would be personally if I wasn't vaxxed / got it pre-vax, and how much worse off everyone would be if that was repeated across the entire population.
Maybe I'm biased coz I love my grandparents dearly and they are both not quite boomers, having been children during WW2 rather than being born after it and are also pretty lefty themselves; my Great Nan having literally hosted Communist meetings in her council house kitchen in the post war era.
I didn't say all elderly people, I said some. The ones who call me lazy and feckless for a start, fuck them.
I believe me putting my life on hold was a waste of time and I bitterly regret doing it out of kindness. I really do at this point with some of the shit these people say to me.
Good response though.
I get it - I had the whole "I'm turning 30 and want to find a partner and get my life together and celebrate with friends" thing collapse, my 30th in lockdown, 2 years not seeing family except on screen, it was awful - but I do think at the end of the day it was probably the right course of action for the health of most people, especially the most vulnerable. It isn't helped by the attitude of many people here, I agree, but this isn't a reddit page - it's a political betting one; a subset of people interested in politics who are also nominally interested in betting on it - so a group that trends towards older with disposable income to lose on bets.
They aren't everyone, and that sacrifice you made out of empathy for your fellow person is important. I'm glad the brain rot of "everyone is an island" and "there is no such thing as society, only the individual and the family unit" is less so in our generation. We can build something new. Unfortunately it does seem like it will have to be out of the ashes of the old, even if it would be preferable to not have to have everything burn down around us.
THIS is now confirmed by the Wall Street Journal AND the New York Times, all info released by officials of the Biden admin
"That a pandemic caused by a bat coronavirus started in the city with the world’s largest programme of research into bat coronaviruses was always intriguing. That among the first people to get ill with allegedly Covid-like symptoms in the month the pandemic began were three scientists working in that lab was highly suspicious.
"Now that we know their names, we find one of them was collecting what turned out to be the closest cousins of Sars-CoV-2 at the time, and another was doing the very experiments that could have created the virus. These revelations make it almost a slam dunk for the coronavirus lab-leak hypothesis."
The man could not look more out of touch if he tried. Jesus Christ.
Rishi: "It's ok, we're going to get through this" Worker: "That's good to hear, prime minister. What is being done to ensure that we do get through this, because I'm still a bit worried about—" Rishi: "No, sorry, you misunderstood. We're" [gestures towards Akshata Murthy] "going to get through this. You? You're fucked."
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Different lives. My parents (now in their late 70's and early 80's) grew up in an era before easy credit, but at a time when buying a house was possible, and only one parent needed to work, so mum stayed at home until us kids were at school. We only holidayed in England, but we did get away. Life was generally simpler. If you wanted stuff you had to save up, but generally there was a lot less stuff to buy.
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy,
To start with. My righteous and vindicated wrath might - MIGHT - be mollified with large sums of cash, in brown envelopes. Maybe. If you're lucky
Apologies for what? For saying that natural sources of pandemics are by far the most likely explanation? As indeed they are?
...
Dear old Tommy Bayes went right by you, didn't he?
Are all likelihoods in your view invariant over time?
I am open to this being a lab leak. Lots of evidence has accrued over time that points that way. I change my views when evidence changes. A bit like on the old quiz show, which I believe is a good example of Bayesian statistics.
Didn't you used to post as someone else rather acerbic?
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
@AdamBienkov Rishi Sunak tells an IKEA worker, whose family is struggling to get treatment on the NHS, that he has a "really, really good plan" to solve the problem, which involves "being a bit clever about how we do things."
I'm sitting at the umpteenth bar in the sunshine by a lock gate with only a few km to go and it will all be over. Bizarrely in addition to the two of us the only other thing sitting on a bar chair is a goat.
So 3 firsts for me this trip. My first earthquake, a crayfish nowhere near water and a goat sitting on a bar chair. He didn't even buy his round.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
Lockdown was successful at saving lives, I never disagreed with that. I cheerlead for them after all.
They were pointless because the impact on the country has been worse than if we'd not bothered. If you are under 45 honestly what has been the upside?
How sure are you that this is true though? The first lockdown was essential to prevent hospitals stopping working (as pretty much happened in Italy). If that happens a lot more people die that could have lived.
The later lockdowns came about for various reasons, but at heart, without the vaccines, the death toll was too high for society to stand (see the vast support for lockdowns and restrictions in society). We made a lot of mistakes. Probably could have had a lot more outdoor mixing all through. Eat out to help out, but only outside. Better support for those isolating, so that they could afford to. But its not that obvious that the economy would have been better off.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
Yes, he put up National Insurance. Only those of us who work for a living pay that, not those living on triple-locked welfare.
OK being serious, yes, furlough was aimed under 90. Though I have my suspicions that Sunak was less keen on furlough than he made out, indeed I've heard a rumour (completely unsubstantiated so dismiss if you want) that the reason Sunak was utterly opposed to Boris's Whatsapp messages being released is that one of them would say on it basically that Sunak didn't want to do furlough as it was too expensive and Boris basically saying "just do it" or something like that.
This is karma. We used to poke fun at the US for choosing an Apprentice boss as President and now we've ended up with an first-week-elimination Apprentice contestant as PM. ~AA
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
That's a bit head I win, tails you lose, logic by you there though.
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
Sweden is not the UK. Compared to Norway etc Sweden did considerably worse.
I hope that the inquiry will lead to a better strategy, should such a situation ever arise again.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
Lockdown was successful at saving lives, I never disagreed with that. I cheerlead for them after all.
They were pointless because the impact on the country has been worse than if we'd not bothered. If you are under 45 honestly what has been the upside?
Another few years with most of my grandparents, great aunts and great uncles.
My grandad is now 92 and still healthy, but has a bit of smokers lung from smoking from 14 - 50. If he got covid he would not have made it, and my nan who is in her mid 80s would not have lasted long after him, or if she got covid. I know not everyone can point to their nan, or grandad, and say they made it through - but we did what we did in the hope that most of our loved ones would. I lost one grandparent to complications associated with covid (she was slowly on her way out and that kicked her through the door, so not the real cause of death), but it could have been so much worse, and so much worse for so many more people.
I can't say I did it for the economy, because I didn't. I can't say I did it out of stiff upper lipness, because I didn't. I did it because I didn't want to take action that would result in the deaths of the vulnerable and old, like my grandparents, and I hoped other people would do the same.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
That's a bit head I win, tails you lose, logic by you there though.
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
Sweden is not the UK. Compared to Norway etc Sweden did considerably worse.
I hope that the inquiry will lead to a better strategy, should such a situation ever arise again.
On what metric did Sweden do considerably worse than Norway?
On the metric of preserving liberty Sweden did far, far, far better than Norway.
According to the less-important metric of deaths that was presented in the media yesterday, Sweden did better than Norway too.
@RobDotHutton In about five days, Sunak will finally crack and concede that Boris Johnson lied to Parliament, and that it would have been better if he hadn't, and by that stage, he'll just look fantastically weak.
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
That's a bit head I win, tails you lose, logic by you there though.
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
Sweden is not the UK. Compared to Norway etc Sweden did considerably worse.
I hope that the inquiry will lead to a better strategy, should such a situation ever arise again.
On what metric did Sweden do considerably worse than Norway?
On the metric of preserving liberty Sweden did far, far, far better than Norway.
According to the less-important metric of deaths that was presented in the media yesterday, Sweden did better than Norway too.
Sweden had 12 times the number of covid deaths per capita compared to Noway. And that metric you presented for deaths has alredy been completely debunked and heavily criticised by - the Swedes.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
I would say that the negatives for young people would have happened covid or not - capitalism wants to extract more value from it's workers to create growth, the easiest way to do that is to pay workers less relative to the value they create, or lay them off completely. Covid exacerbated and highlighted some of these worst things, but if it wasn't covid it would be climate change, or inflation, or whatever other shock to the system would come about and mean government would shit on the young and workers.
For the last few minutes, I've been serenaded by what (*) is the sound of Merlin engines, as two Spitfires (*) play overhead.
Magnificent.
(*) I think.
You are in the right part of the World for Duxford. Air show this weekend!
Yeah, we often get one overhead - in fact, the children of one of the pilots goes to my son's school, so sports days often have a Spitfire overhead. Getting two in formation is a little more unusual. I've never seen any of the heavies though - the B17 or any transport aircraft.
Unconnected to Duxford, we often get a pair of Apache helicopters travelling east-west or west-east - rumour has it that they're transiting to the Norfolk ranges?
@AdamBienkov Rishi Sunak tells an IKEA worker, whose family is struggling to get treatment on the NHS, that he has a "really, really good plan" to solve the problem, which involves "being a bit clever about how we do things."
This reminds me about Josh Lyman's secret plan to fight inflation.
Isn’t part of Sunak’s problem with this that he also lied to parliament if Boris did? He said there was no lawbreaking before he got fined for lawbreaking
Even if inflation falls Sunak can hardly bring out the bunting given to get there it would have driven many people to lose their homes .
On another note am I the only one fed up of the moralizing crap from people who seek to judge those who just wanted to own their own home . The situation was vastly different 20 years ago .
People took out mortgages and could never have envisaged the rapid change in interest rates over the space of just over a year.
There seems to be a lot of mean spiritedness about which I find appalling when some people are going to be sick with worry over what will happen to their mortgages .
Indeed. PB at its curtain-twitching worst.
Yuk.
It boils my piss.
If you are under the age of 45 the economy has handed you a shit sandwich and getting onto the housing ladder has been the only, narrow window for material advancement.
As usual, the boomers have no idea and merely pour scorn on those that follow. This, even as their last great idea, Brexit, is widely understood as an absolute disaster.
As someone in my early 30s I also find it increasingly annoying that we have not only been handed a shitty economy but that if any of us argue for a better one, or a better future in general, we often get called entitled or (as we have been discussing today) "elites".
It's weird that the sub 30s make up a small part of the population, and have only Bern economically active a short time, yet its their profligacy and entitlement which must be addressed to fix things.
Lord knows post Millennials have their annoyances but I think detective poirot can search for other suspects.
I am also similar age to the poster above, the Tories and their friends call me entitled and lazy despite the fact I have worked every day since I was 18 years old. Fuck off.
Different lives. My parents (now in their late 70's and early 80's) grew up in an era before easy credit, but at a time when buying a house was possible, and only one parent needed to work, so mum stayed at home until us kids were at school. We only holidayed in England, but we did get away. Life was generally simpler. If you wanted stuff you had to save up, but generally there was a lot less stuff to buy.
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy,
I said we should have let elderly people be protected during COVID and let us all go on about our lives. I received a strong and vocal response that I said I was being ageist and nasty.
Yet anyone can call young people feckless, lazy, stupid, woke and nobody bats an eyelid. No such such as being youngist!
The truth is, you oldies have fucked it for the young of this country. We are fed up and angry with you (not all of you but a lot of you).
I think this idea is nonsense. Many many younger people died of covid in the first year. It was not just a threat to the over 70's. And if we had done as you now suggest (after your Damascene conversion on lockdowns) the hospitals would have been overwhelmed with covid patients when you presented with something else and didn't get treated.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
That's a bit head I win, tails you lose, logic by you there though.
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
Sweden is not the UK. Compared to Norway etc Sweden did considerably worse.
I hope that the inquiry will lead to a better strategy, should such a situation ever arise again.
On what metric did Sweden do considerably worse than Norway?
On the metric of preserving liberty Sweden did far, far, far better than Norway.
According to the less-important metric of deaths that was presented in the media yesterday, Sweden did better than Norway too.
I was under the impression that the Swedish version of Chris Witty believed they got it wrong.
All of this is complex. We are having a 3 (maybe longer) year inquiry into it. We won't ever truly know what would have happened on the road not travelled. Its too tempting now to look back and say we shouldn't have done this, we shouldn't have done that.
At the time I believed we opened up too slowly and had some ludicrous rules (masks in pubs when upright but now when sitting and one way systems in the shops). We undoubted made a lot of mistakes. Arguably everywhere did, and usually different mistakes. If you recall the times most of the media, most of the time wanted more lockdown. As did almost all politicians (Starmer, Drakeford, Sturgeon).
Yeah, we often get one overhead - in fact, the children of one of the pilots goes to my son's school, so sports days often have a Spitfire overhead. Getting two in formation is a little more unusual. I've never seen any of the heavies though - the B17 or any transport aircraft.
I went to the Battle of Britain show a few years ago. There were IIRC a dozen Merlin engines in the air at one point.
Isn’t part of Sunak’s problem with this that he also lied to parliament if Boris did? He said there was no lawbreaking before he got fined for lawbreaking
I don't think so. He genuinely believed he had done no wrong and I don't believe he has been asked to clarify.
Boris wanted higher wages. He’s got higher wages. He let the inflation genie out of the bottle to generate short term headlines. Who was chancellor? It happened on their watch.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
We need a PM willing to make some really difficult decisions - end the triple lock and charge NI on all income not just earned. Include pension income as well. Keep or increase the minimum earnings so those only getting a basic state pension don't pay it but all income shoud be charged in the same way as paid work irrespective of how it is acquired.
Sunak won't touch this and sadly I don't think Starmer will either.
Boris wanted higher wages. He’s got higher wages. He let the inflation genie out of the bottle to generate short term headlines. Who was chancellor? It happened on their watch.
What higher wages? Where are the inflation beating pay rises?
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
The lockdown was to prevent rNHS from being overwhelmed, as was the case with the Iranian Health Service in March 2020. The videos of which on Social media were harrowing. This has seemingly become yet another inter generational football where younger people simply seem to think they did it to protect selfish old people and they forget it was all about the NHS which they claim, in general, to revere.
Isn’t part of Sunak’s problem with this that he also lied to parliament if Boris did? He said there was no lawbreaking before he got fined for lawbreaking
I don't think so. He genuinely believed he had done no wrong and I don't believe he has been asked to clarify.
Boris always tries to straddle things with his positions - so he claims he did nothing wrong, and doesn't understand why he got fined, yet did not challenge the fine. Don't tell me politically he could not have, if he was that politically adroit he'd not have ended up where he did.
Although the "cyclists need insurance" brigade do have a point. Liability insurance for cyclists is quite sensible.
It's a ludicrous idea.
We all do things that could in theory expose us to liability to a third party. Your dog might bite someone. Your lawnmower might damage a neighbour's gnome. You might knock over a shelf of pottery in a shop. You might injure someone with an ill-timed challenge in an informal game of park football.
We don't insist on people getting liability insurance for these activities because the risk of a claim arising is low, and the likelihood of it being a high value claim even if it does is low (i.e. if there is a legal claim against you, there's a good chance you'd be able to pay without claiming on insurance). We make an exception for motor insurance as the inherent risk from driving around several tonnes of metal at potentially some speed is pretty high - we don't have a high accident rate in the UK, but where they do happen the damage to property and people can be pretty catastrophic and beyond the means of the person claimed against.
That is not to diminish the fact that on very rare occasions, an irresponsible person on a bike can cause significant damage. But compared with motor vehicles it is simply incredibly unusual to have situations where lack of third party insurance is an issue for the injured party.
It’s far from ludicrous. I have liability insurance through my membership of cyclingUK. I am happy with that.
s for the rest of your rant, yeah, I know why insurance for us cyclists is optional and motorists isn’t.
As I understand the "insurance for cyclists" gang, their point is not "cyclists would be wise to obtain third party insurance" but "cyclists should be legally required to get insurance, as drivers are". Those are very different things.
I agree with you that there are merits in cyclists being insured and, as many have pointed out, they often are.
I was wondering which lefty rent-a-gob would win the submarine award today.
Step forward Ash Sarkar.
'If the super-rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean then they're not being taxed enough.'
I'm sorry, but when hubris meets nemesis then catharsis happens.
A load of rich people ignored a load of safety standards to go oggle a well known monument to hubris and catastrophe, and then disappear? If that were in a modern retelling of An Inspector Calls, that would be considered too on the nose, not subtle enough, a bit heavy handed.
The people involved are still human beings, with families and friends.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
The lockdown was to prevent rNHS from being overwhelmed, as was the case with the Iranian Health Service in March 2020. The videos of which on Social media were harrowing. This has seemingly become yet another inter generational football where younger people simply seem to think they did it to protect selfish old people and they forget it was all about the NHS which they claim, in general, to revere.
Boris wanted higher wages. He’s got higher wages. He let the inflation genie out of the bottle to generate short term headlines. Who was chancellor? It happened on their watch.
What higher wages? Where are the inflation beating pay rises?
Well quite, nevertheless they encouraged people to ask for more.
I am ready for a fight. I genuinely hate the people who have been so protected whilst we get fucked.
Put our lives on hold. Fucked.
We should have all refused to lock down, it was a complete waste of time for us. The people protected will be dead soon, we've got years of this shit to come.
I am so, so angry. I have no confidence Labour will sort it out - but the priority is getting Little Rishi and his bunch of fucktards out.
Labour rarely sorts anything out.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
You make a good point but I was addressing the overwhelming feeling we get from the media and so on who amplify it. I recall the week we spent discussing avocado on toast.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
It wasn't just older people that were killed by Covid. Yes they were disproportionately effected. The lockdowns were not designed to save the elderly, they were designed to save our healthcare system. Funnily enough, the one system in Europe that is closest to our mad NHS system had no lockdown at all (Sweden). It will be interesting to reflect on which government got it right.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
It's not just lockdown, it is the aftermath. Young people had their lives put on hold because it was the right thing to do yet we are basically now fending for ourselves.
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
We need a PM willing to make some really difficult decisions - end the triple lock and charge NI on all income not just earned. Include pension income as well. Keep or increase the minimum earnings so those only getting a basic state pension don't pay it but all income shoud be charged in the same way as paid work irrespective of how it is acquired.
Sunak won't touch this and sadly I don't think Starmer will either.
Comments
Time for an amusing Alisdair Beckett-King: Every Evil Emperor
Obviously no registration plate on the e-bike to track down. She is going to raise it with the well known food delivery company. There is a strong case for registration plates of some description for e-bikes and e-scooters in my view.
It’s not surprising that some idiots don’t have an ounce of compassion in their bodies though, and instead decide to embody David Cameron’s famous remark about Twitter.
There are plenty of off-colour jokes that could be made about a tragedy. This isn’t one of them.
Maybe I'm biased coz I love my grandparents dearly and they are both not quite boomers, having been children during WW2 rather than being born after it and are also pretty lefty themselves; my Great Nan having literally hosted Communist meetings in her council house kitchen in the post war era.
We should have resisted and gone about our lives. What a complete shower. Fuck Johnson, fuck Rishi and fuck the Tories. And fuck Labour too for good measure.
Can I double or quits on UAP NOT being revealed to be actual alien space-craft, zooming round and crashing with alarming regularity?
Economic migrants also take risks crossing the seas and channel when it would be safer on that score to stay in their home county doesn't mean we don't also mourn their loss if their boats sink and they drown
I believe me putting my life on hold was a waste of time and I bitterly regret doing it out of kindness. I really do at this point with some of the shit these people say to me.
Good response though.
We didn't have any of the above in the 1920s, indeed the Poor Law wasn't repealed and Workhouses weren't formally abolished until 1948
Can nobody here get satire seriously? I was obviously taking the piss out of Leon going off on his tangents, Jesus Christ didn't realise I needed to label the joke.
Rishi Sunak will get the blame, but from a Tory perspective it was Cameron's coalition government that really blew the chance to sort out the economy.
He’s largely a rentier this stage, although for reasons he has a small mortgage still.
I think he is in the pre-boomer generation which saw closer integration with the EU as good both in terms of greater freedom and as a response to the War.
But joking aside, the younger generation do have legitimate complaint, though in my experience it is a little simplistic to make demographic divisions. There are plenty of entitled oldies and entitled youngers. There are plenty of whinging oldies and whinging youngsters. There are also those that work bloody hard, don't blame others and become a success in life however that looks, because they seize the day and look for the bright spots rather than the dark.
There are plenty of reasons why we (particularly those in UK) should all be very grateful for the times we live in, despite Brexit, incoming Labour governments, Putin etc. Let us be grateful we were not born in Mariupol.
I do recall some PBers revelling in the no doubt frequently unpleasant deaths of Russian conscripts being fed into the mincing machine. I imagine most of them had families and friends.
Doesn’t include Malcom.
I am not saying all elderly people are bad - but a large minority give the rest a bad name. And for them I am afraid I regret putting my life on hold.
I've only ever had a interest-only mortgage and consequently have very low monthly costs with large tolerance for rates increasing - and I reduce capital in chunks on an ad hoc basis. I'm wondering whether people with repayment mortgages realise this is an option with lenders (there may need to be some equity in the property). The other thing to consider is extending the term.
Basic rule - look after the person slower/more vulnerable than you and be patient. If you're a driver, that means cyclists, pedestrians, horses etc. If you're a cyclist it means pedestrians. Hell, if you're a pedestrian it means getting out of the way of the doddery old lady with the stick coming towards you.
I know from personal experience, from thirty years ago, just how worrying this is.
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy, and just 'not having that latte' isn't the answer.
That said, despite the struggles for the youngsters today, there are compensations. Modern life is great, for the most part, for most people. I don't think many would seriously want to be sent back in time to the 1960's, when my parents were becoming adults.
Sorry you didn't get the joke - but it was intended ass one.
People die every day, sometimes tragically. 500 migrants die in a boat of the coast of Greece and some people in this country look at that as good, and want to see more of that happen in the Channel.
Orca posting, not caring about this submarine, people celebrating when bad people die happens because lots of people recognise that lots of really rich people aren't happy that they have immense wealth, but that we have to treat them like royalty as well. To which I say bollocks. Most people cannot dream of quarter of a million pounds. Of course seeing people spending that when you can barely pay rent or feed your kids or enjoy life will lead to some of these reactions.
Interesting to see some influential minds are changing:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/20/lockdown-damaged-a-generation-sally-davies-inquiry-covid/
The man could not look more out of touch if he tried. Jesus Christ.
Success of lockdowns has led, as predicted, to people saying they weren't needed.
If I was young I would.
Are all likelihoods in your view invariant over time?
They were pointless because the impact on the country has been worse than if we'd not bothered. If you are under 45 honestly what has been the upside?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65988094
You can claim they were needed because they worked, but where's the evidence for that?
Sweden did better than us in preserving liberty and they didn't exactly all die in Sweden as a result now, did they?
https://twitter.com/JonnyGabriel/status/1671827237224562689
PM Rishi Sunak tells business leaders in Kent he's "a different kind of politician" and wants to "change things"
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1671879687407276032
Goodness me. What a travesty of a speech.
Lockdown was pretty shit. But if you want to focus on the bright side by contrasting with the darkest, imagine what it must be like for those people in Ukraine at the moment, or even the parents of Russian soldiers. They really have had a lot to complain about.
They aren't everyone, and that sacrifice you made out of empathy for your fellow person is important. I'm glad the brain rot of "everyone is an island" and "there is no such thing as society, only the individual and the family unit" is less so in our generation. We can build something new. Unfortunately it does seem like it will have to be out of the ashes of the old, even if it would be preferable to not have to have everything burn down around us.
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy, I am open to this being a lab leak. Lots of evidence has accrued over time that points that way. I change my views when evidence changes. A bit like on the old quiz show, which I believe is a good example of Bayesian statistics.
Didn't you used to post as someone else rather acerbic?
Rishi says he wants to help, has literally anything he's done been aimed at anyone under the age of 90?
@AndrewSparrow
Sunak says 'standards matter' - but he again refuses to say if he agrees with privilege committee findings about Boris Johnson -
@AdamBienkov
Rishi Sunak tells an IKEA worker, whose family is struggling to get treatment on the NHS, that he has a "really, really good plan" to solve the problem, which involves "being a bit clever about how we do things."
So 3 firsts for me this trip. My first earthquake, a crayfish nowhere near water and a goat sitting on a bar chair. He didn't even buy his round.
The later lockdowns came about for various reasons, but at heart, without the vaccines, the death toll was too high for society to stand (see the vast support for lockdowns and restrictions in society). We made a lot of mistakes. Probably could have had a lot more outdoor mixing all through. Eat out to help out, but only outside. Better support for those isolating, so that they could afford to. But its not that obvious that the economy would have been better off.
Magnificent.
(*) I think.
OK being serious, yes, furlough was aimed under 90. Though I have my suspicions that Sunak was less keen on furlough than he made out, indeed I've heard a rumour (completely unsubstantiated so dismiss if you want) that the reason Sunak was utterly opposed to Boris's Whatsapp messages being released is that one of them would say on it basically that Sunak didn't want to do furlough as it was too expensive and Boris basically saying "just do it" or something like that.
OH PHEW!
I was very anxious he was only "on it" a bit. 👀~AA
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1671874969750618113
This is karma. We used to poke fun at the US for choosing an Apprentice boss as President and now we've ended up with an first-week-elimination Apprentice contestant as PM. ~AA
I hope that the inquiry will lead to a better strategy, should such a situation ever arise again.
My grandad is now 92 and still healthy, but has a bit of smokers lung from smoking from 14 - 50. If he got covid he would not have made it, and my nan who is in her mid 80s would not have lasted long after him, or if she got covid. I know not everyone can point to their nan, or grandad, and say they made it through - but we did what we did in the hope that most of our loved ones would. I lost one grandparent to complications associated with covid (she was slowly on her way out and that kicked her through the door, so not the real cause of death), but it could have been so much worse, and so much worse for so many more people.
I can't say I did it for the economy, because I didn't. I can't say I did it out of stiff upper lipness, because I didn't. I did it because I didn't want to take action that would result in the deaths of the vulnerable and old, like my grandparents, and I hoped other people would do the same.
Rishi Sunak: net -34 (down 6 from 15-16 June)
Boris Johnson: -52 (down 8)
Keir Starmer: -14 (up 9)
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1671829866927226880
Sunak on his way down down to JC levels now.
On the metric of preserving liberty Sweden did far, far, far better than Norway.
According to the less-important metric of deaths that was presented in the media yesterday, Sweden did better than Norway too.
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1671883061640974336
Cheers Rishi mate
In about five days, Sunak will finally crack and concede that Boris Johnson lied to Parliament, and that it would have been better if he hadn't, and by that stage, he'll just look fantastically weak.
Unconnected to Duxford, we often get a pair of Apache helicopters travelling east-west or west-east - rumour has it that they're transiting to the Norfolk ranges?
Nowadays its really hard to get on the housing ladder (we were lucky and were gifted a deposit and both have good salaries, and don't want to live in London or indeed Bath), uni, where 50 % of kids are strongly pushed to, costs lots of money that is borrowed, and credit is easy to obtain. The culture of buy now, pay later is embedded and so people are not used to delayed gratification. The mountain of saving required to get that deposit is not easy, I was under the impression that the Swedish version of Chris Witty believed they got it wrong.
All of this is complex. We are having a 3 (maybe longer) year inquiry into it. We won't ever truly know what would have happened on the road not travelled. Its too tempting now to look back and say we shouldn't have done this, we shouldn't have done that.
At the time I believed we opened up too slowly and had some ludicrous rules (masks in pubs when upright but now when sitting and one way systems in the shops). We undoubted made a lot of mistakes. Arguably everywhere did, and usually different mistakes. If you recall the times most of the media, most of the time wanted more lockdown. As did almost all politicians (Starmer, Drakeford, Sturgeon).
Epic.
Sunak won't touch this and sadly I don't think Starmer will either.
This has seemingly become yet another inter generational football where younger people simply seem to think they did it to protect selfish old people and they forget it was all about the NHS which they claim, in general, to revere.
I agree with you that there are merits in cyclists being insured and, as many have pointed out, they often are.