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Sunak continues to struggle with favourability – politicalbetting.com

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  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437
    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    FF43 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    FF43 said:

    Amazon said:

    The confident mocking respinses have gone. Honestly can you guys get anything right...erm no.

    Curious why all these trolls turn up on Saturday mornings. Can't see any reason for it. Are they working off some spreadsheet with a Saturday am cell marked "politicalbetting.com" and nobody can be arsed to change it?
    They are not Russian because their English is not how Russians write and speak in that language.

    I assume they are from anglophone parts of Africa being paid buttons to push the Russian lines and have day jobs or academic commitments Mon-Fri.

    It's a very crude psy-op and the Ukrainian ones (Euromaiden, Visegard24, etc. All that shit that gets reposted here by the credulous.) are much better, presumably with the help of Langley.
    I suspect that too. Possibly also from India. I also suspect at some level they actually believe what they post.
    Agree they’re not Russian. The language isn’t quite right. @Dura_Ace could be right that they’re operating out of English-speaking Africa, with people who can pick up a lot of UK politics relatively quickly.

    Today’s was a particularly bad example though. One of the trainees who goes straight to the propaganda with no attempt to ingratiate themselves in the forum first.

    Quite why they target PB is another question. It’s very unlikely they’re going to change any minds on the subject here.
    PB is widely read in high end politics. MPs etc.
    Louise Mensch used to post here about 15 years ago apparently.
    We had 2 MPs posting under their own names, even before we speculate about others.
    Three, with Stewart Jackson.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437
    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    FF43 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    FF43 said:

    Amazon said:

    The confident mocking respinses have gone. Honestly can you guys get anything right...erm no.

    Curious why all these trolls turn up on Saturday mornings. Can't see any reason for it. Are they working off some spreadsheet with a Saturday am cell marked "politicalbetting.com" and nobody can be arsed to change it?
    They are not Russian because their English is not how Russians write and speak in that language.

    I assume they are from anglophone parts of Africa being paid buttons to push the Russian lines and have day jobs or academic commitments Mon-Fri.

    It's a very crude psy-op and the Ukrainian ones (Euromaiden, Visegard24, etc. All that shit that gets reposted here by the credulous.) are much better, presumably with the help of Langley.
    I suspect that too. Possibly also from India. I also suspect at some level they actually believe what they post.
    Agree they’re not Russian. The language isn’t quite right. @Dura_Ace could be right that they’re operating out of English-speaking Africa, with people who can pick up a lot of UK politics relatively quickly.

    Today’s was a particularly bad example though. One of the trainees who goes straight to the propaganda with no attempt to ingratiate themselves in the forum first.

    Quite why they target PB is another question. It’s very unlikely they’re going to change any minds on the subject here.
    PB is widely read in high end politics. MPs etc.
    Louise Mensch used to post here about 15 years ago apparently.
    Don’t start me on that *****

    You spend a week knocking doors for someone, and they decide after less than two years that being an MP just isn’t for them…
  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    So, you look for the best fit.

    Lung cancer explodes after ww1. So do lots of other things like aeroplanes and cars and jazz music and cigarette smoking. In Mill terms you are allowed to look at all those things as possible causes. With lungs involved cigarettes are the best fit.

    Not saying anyone actually thought that way but if they did they were right for the right reasons.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    .

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    The people who get got by inheritance tax, are generally those with a house and not much else. Those with actual money, can always plan around it. Better off just getting rid of it.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
  • TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
    On my way back from 35 C Valencia to the cold, wet Midlands tomorrow. If French ATC don't strike and the winds at EMA abate sufficiently, that is.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    Andy_JS said:

    Cookie said:

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Sandpit said:

    FF43 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    FF43 said:

    Amazon said:

    The confident mocking respinses have gone. Honestly can you guys get anything right...erm no.

    Curious why all these trolls turn up on Saturday mornings. Can't see any reason for it. Are they working off some spreadsheet with a Saturday am cell marked "politicalbetting.com" and nobody can be arsed to change it?
    They are not Russian because their English is not how Russians write and speak in that language.

    I assume they are from anglophone parts of Africa being paid buttons to push the Russian lines and have day jobs or academic commitments Mon-Fri.

    It's a very crude psy-op and the Ukrainian ones (Euromaiden, Visegard24, etc. All that shit that gets reposted here by the credulous.) are much better, presumably with the help of Langley.
    I suspect that too. Possibly also from India. I also suspect at some level they actually believe what they post.
    Agree they’re not Russian. The language isn’t quite right. @Dura_Ace could be right that they’re operating out of English-speaking Africa, with people who can pick up a lot of UK politics relatively quickly.

    Today’s was a particularly bad example though. One of the trainees who goes straight to the propaganda with no attempt to ingratiate themselves in the forum first.

    Quite why they target PB is another question. It’s very unlikely they’re going to change any minds on the subject here.
    PB is widely read in high end politics. MPs etc.
    We know Cameron used to read this site. Still does, perhaps.

    Has anyone else in high level politics admitted to a PB addiction?
    It was rumoured that a very well known Labour politician used to post under the handle "Snowflake". Her online blog has not seen any new posts since 2014 (because I just checked)
    There is no https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/Snowflake or https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/snowflake . Was it before the move from Disqus?
    Yes. Snowflake was, I'd say, roughly 2008- 2012.
    You can sometimes still read comments from that time on the Internet Archive.
    One of my favourite websites, for its books, magazines and sometimes quite obscure reports and things, as well as having a fair chance of having a now lost website on it, at least in some iterations. Permanent button on my screen.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,915

    viewcode said:

    Phil said:

    Sandpit said:

    FF43 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    FF43 said:

    Amazon said:

    The confident mocking respinses have gone. Honestly can you guys get anything right...erm no.

    Curious why all these trolls turn up on Saturday mornings. Can't see any reason for it. Are they working off some spreadsheet with a Saturday am cell marked "politicalbetting.com" and nobody can be arsed to change it?
    They are not Russian because their English is not how Russians write and speak in that language.

    I assume they are from anglophone parts of Africa being paid buttons to push the Russian lines and have day jobs or academic commitments Mon-Fri.

    It's a very crude psy-op and the Ukrainian ones (Euromaiden, Visegard24, etc. All that shit that gets reposted here by the credulous.) are much better, presumably with the help of Langley.
    I suspect that too. Possibly also from India. I also suspect at some level they actually believe what they post.
    Agree they’re not Russian. The language isn’t quite right. @Dura_Ace could be right that they’re operating out of English-speaking Africa, with people who can pick up a lot of UK politics relatively quickly.

    Today’s was a particularly bad example though. One of the trainees who goes straight to the propaganda with no attempt to ingratiate themselves in the forum first.

    Quite why they target PB is another question. It’s very unlikely they’re going to change any minds on the subject here.
    PB is widely read in high end politics. MPs etc.
    We know Cameron used to read this site. Still does, perhaps.

    Has anyone else in high level politics admitted to a PB addiction?
    It was rumoured that a very well known Labour politician used to post under the handle "Snowflake". Her online blog has not seen any new posts since 2014 (because I just checked)
    There is no https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/Snowflake or https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/snowflake . Was it before the move from Disqus?
    Before the move TO disqus.
    Yikes! What did we have back then? I have forgotten, but I remember nobody liked the migration to disqus
    I guess it was whatever is bundled with wordpress as standard?
    Ancient history :D
    There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in.

    Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule, Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle).

    I'm glad that we've left the strife of the Brexit Wars behind us.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    edited July 2023

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    As well as charities. The definition is critical. Bit shit for the Yorkshire Party or Mebyon Kernow, ffor instance. Or anyone hoping to qualify for 36% IHT by bribing the Tories posthumously.

    https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/inheritance-tax-manual/ihtm11191
    https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/inheritance-tax-manual/ihtm11196

    And Mr Banks fell foul of this (not quite sure, as he seems to be alive still: perhaps a deed of variation for a legacy through him>).

    https://www.brewin.co.uk/insights/gifts-exempt-from-iht
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    edited July 2023

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
    On my way back from 35 C Valencia to the cold, wet Midlands tomorrow. If French ATC don't strike and the winds at EMA abate sufficiently, that is.
    There’s so little in the middle available at the moment. 27C with sunny spells. Belgium and Northern Germany, parts of Western France and North Portugal. Otherwise you’re in the furnace or the chiller.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302

    ClippP said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    And squandered all the proceeds from North Sea Oil.
    Used the proceeds from North Sea Oil to deal with the transformation and modernisation of the economy away from uncompetitive heavy industries.
    Uh-huh? Good job Germany had all that North Sea Oil too then.
    Germany had an industrial base that had been completely rebuilt by the allies only 30 years earlier. There really was no comparison.
    Is there then, in your opinion, any possible comparable country? If not, it's hard to prove your incorrect argument without a window into the alternative universe where a UK PM made sensible use of the North Sea Oil bonanza.
    Again, looking at it in isolation is not realistic. In comparison with the rest of Europe the UK went from 'the sick man of Europe' in the late 70s to one of the leading economies at the end of the 80s. We did make sensible use of North Sea oil. The alternative was to continue as a backward, failing, deindustrialising nation ruled by the unions and facing unsustainable challenges from the rest of the world.

    Did Thatcher do everything (or even most) things right? No. But on the transformation of the economy on a national scale she was spot on.
    I wonder what Thatcherism without EEC membership would have looked like. Possibly a softer landing because British industry would have had some protection from continental imports.
    No Nissan factory for a start.
    If the Nissan factory symbolised a broader trend of manufacturing investment due to EEC membership, then it wouldn't stand out in the way that it still does.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
    Interesting, because there's no need to do that. Wonder why?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    edited July 2023
    TimS said:


    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
    On my way back from 35 C Valencia to the cold, wet Midlands tomorrow. If French ATC don't strike and the winds at EMA abate sufficiently, that is.
    There’s so little in the middle available at the moment. 27C with sunny spells. Belgium and Northern Germany, parts of Western France and North Portugal. Otherwise you’re in the furnace or the chiller.
    Cadiz fits the criteria.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2520600
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    ..
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,126
    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437

    Cookie said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    FF43 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    FF43 said:

    Amazon said:

    The confident mocking respinses have gone. Honestly can you guys get anything right...erm no.

    Curious why all these trolls turn up on Saturday mornings. Can't see any reason for it. Are they working off some spreadsheet with a Saturday am cell marked "politicalbetting.com" and nobody can be arsed to change it?
    They are not Russian because their English is not how Russians write and speak in that language.

    I assume they are from anglophone parts of Africa being paid buttons to push the Russian lines and have day jobs or academic commitments Mon-Fri.

    It's a very crude psy-op and the Ukrainian ones (Euromaiden, Visegard24, etc. All that shit that gets reposted here by the credulous.) are much better, presumably with the help of Langley.
    I suspect that too. Possibly also from India. I also suspect at some level they actually believe what they post.
    Agree they’re not Russian. The language isn’t quite right. @Dura_Ace could be right that they’re operating out of English-speaking Africa, with people who can pick up a lot of UK politics relatively quickly.

    Today’s was a particularly bad example though. One of the trainees who goes straight to the propaganda with no attempt to ingratiate themselves in the forum first.

    Quite why they target PB is another question. It’s very unlikely they’re going to change any minds on the subject here.
    PB is widely read in high end politics. MPs etc.
    Louise Mensch used to post here about 15 years ago apparently.
    We had 2 MPs posting under their own names, even before we speculate about others.
    Three, with Stewart Jackson.
    So that is three named MPs (at least) and we did have a lot of PB Tory astroturfers while the party was in opposition, so it is entirely possible we had then-future MPs.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
    They are solicitors.

    They take our money and fuck us.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023
    Well it’s a bit more humid than I’d like, but here’s my view. It’s higher than the one in Singapore.



  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 719
    lightweights...


  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    Penddu2 said:

    lightweights...


    What are we looking at?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    TimS said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    There’s ample physics behind it which everyone in atmospheric science has been immersed in for decades (arguably over a century). It’s what everything from the most basic statistical to the most complex numerical models show when forced with rising CO2 and NOx.

    All the indicators: sea levels, ocean heat content, surface temperatures, glaciers, upper air temperatures etc are consistent with projections from rising GHGs. The regional trends are consistent with rising then falling loadings of sulphate aerosols.

    Disbelieving climate change really takes an effort of will and imagination. Many have tried, and time after time their alternative theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not impossible we’ve all got this terribly wrong, nothings impossible, but it would be the greatest scientific error of all time. It would be equivalent to the theory of evolution being conclusively refuted.

    The only reason it’s remotely controversial is not scientific, it’s political. Because Americans (almost entirely, though the Russians are at it too) have decided to make it a culture war battle.
    The desire of some people, like Peck, to disbelieve reality because it doesn't match their ideology is the greatest problem in modern politics and governance. (Maybe "modern" is unnecessary there?) I am glad that climate change denial, anti-vaxx, UFOs and Ukrainian bioweapon labs are still mostly on the fringe of politics in the UK, unlike the US where the Republican Party has been eviscerated by fantasies (voter fraud, "Sound of Freedom", drag queen threat, hormones being given to 5 year olds, Hillary Clinton's emails are in Ukraine, Jewish space laser, etc.).
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215

    ClippP said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    And squandered all the proceeds from North Sea Oil.
    Used the proceeds from North Sea Oil to deal with the transformation and modernisation of the economy away from uncompetitive heavy industries.
    Uh-huh? Good job Germany had all that North Sea Oil too then.
    Germany had an industrial base that had been completely rebuilt by the allies only 30 years earlier. There really was no comparison.
    Is there then, in your opinion, any possible comparable country? If not, it's hard to prove your incorrect argument without a window into the alternative universe where a UK PM made sensible use of the North Sea Oil bonanza.
    Again, looking at it in isolation is not realistic. In comparison with the rest of Europe the UK went from 'the sick man of Europe' in the late 70s to one of the leading economies at the end of the 80s. We did make sensible use of North Sea oil. The alternative was to continue as a backward, failing, deindustrialising nation ruled by the unions and facing unsustainable challenges from the rest of the world.

    Did Thatcher do everything (or even most) things right? No. But on the transformation of the economy on a national scale she was spot on.
    I wonder what Thatcherism without EEC membership would have looked like. Possibly a softer landing because British industry would have had some protection from continental imports.
    No Nissan factory for a start.
    If the Nissan factory symbolised a broader trend of manufacturing investment due to EEC membership, then it wouldn't stand out in the way that it still does.
    Interesting history of Japanese industrial investment and trade blocs.

    In the 1980s Japanese auto and electronics firms went on an investment binge in Europe. They tended to build factories in Catalonia, Alsace, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, and Wales. Especially in the Welsh Valleys and around Wrexham.

    They needed to assemble in the EU in order to benefit from rules of origin and avoid customs duties. Most were just final assembly plants. I visited one in France a few years ago where they just bunged together printer modules and put the right instruction manual in before boxing up.

    Then a few years ago the EU and Japan eliminated tariffs on most electronics products. This coincided with major profitability challenges for most of them (in fact the majority were loss making). So Japanese businesses started to close factories in
    Europe and ship either from Japan or increasingly from China and Thailand.

    Automotive retains its protective tariffs, hence why the big car factories for the Japanese and American companies remain in Britain abc the EU (and its neighbours with preferential tariff agreements, like Serbia).
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215

    TimS said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    There’s ample physics behind it which everyone in atmospheric science has been immersed in for decades (arguably over a century). It’s what everything from the most basic statistical to the most complex numerical models show when forced with rising CO2 and NOx.

    All the indicators: sea levels, ocean heat content, surface temperatures, glaciers, upper air temperatures etc are consistent with projections from rising GHGs. The regional trends are consistent with rising then falling loadings of sulphate aerosols.

    Disbelieving climate change really takes an effort of will and imagination. Many have tried, and time after time their alternative theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not impossible we’ve all got this terribly wrong, nothings impossible, but it would be the greatest scientific error of all time. It would be equivalent to the theory of evolution being conclusively refuted.

    The only reason it’s remotely controversial is not scientific, it’s political. Because Americans (almost entirely, though the Russians are at it too) have decided to make it a culture war battle.
    The desire of some people, like Peck, to disbelieve reality because it doesn't match their ideology is the greatest problem in modern politics and governance. (Maybe "modern" is unnecessary there?) I am glad that climate change denial, anti-vaxx, UFOs and Ukrainian bioweapon labs are still mostly on the fringe of politics in the UK, unlike the US where the Republican Party has been eviscerated by fantasies (voter fraud, "Sound of Freedom", drag queen threat, hormones being given to 5 year olds, Hillary Clinton's emails are in Ukraine, Jewish space laser, etc.).
    The US left compound it too though. By making climate change mitigation all about adopting the checklist of things the left always wanted but were afraid to ask, they are complicit in politicising it too.

    We have managed to get to a decent position in Britain recently where we can talk green economic growth and renewables in a nice mid century white-heat tone without having to reach for the radical degrowth stuff that gets peoples backs up.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    Possibly although it doesn't necessarily fallow.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    But the greedy ones who made multiple applications, or bought council houses through paper reps, roed the day when they were caught out.

    (It seemed very odd to see MPs etc. risking careers for a few hundred quid's worth of shares, as I recall.)

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    Carnyx said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    But the greedy ones who made multiple applications, or bought council houses through paper reps, roed the day when they were caught out.

    (It seemed very odd to see MPs etc. risking careers for a few hundred quid's worth of shares, as I recall.)

    I'm regretting starting these deer puns.

    I hope they end veni soon.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    But the greedy ones who made multiple applications, or bought council houses through paper reps, roed the day when they were caught out.

    (It seemed very odd to see MPs etc. risking careers for a few hundred quid's worth of shares, as I recall.)

    I'm regretting starting these deer puns.

    I hope they end veni soon.
    You feeling sika than when you started? Not as much as those multiple spivs, though.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
    They are solicitors.

    They take our money and fuck us.
    We love you too
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    edited July 2023
    DougSeal said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
    They are solicitors.

    They take our money and fuck us.
    We love you too
    You may, but The Tories don't. They're only out To screw us.

    (I think you may have missed the pun on 'solicitors' and 'solicitIng.')
  • PeckPeck Posts: 517
    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    And bucks.

    Re. the MPs: see the parable of the scorpion and the fox.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,067
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    TimS said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    are you saying the price wasn't deer enough?
    It was a great way to make quick doe
    But the greedy ones who made multiple applications, or bought council houses through paper reps, roed the day when they were caught out.

    (It seemed very odd to see MPs etc. risking careers for a few hundred quid's worth of shares, as I recall.)

    I'm regretting starting these deer puns.

    I hope they end veni soon.
    If not, they’ll fall on fallow ground.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    There’s ample physics behind it which everyone in atmospheric science has been immersed in for decades (arguably over a century). It’s what everything from the most basic statistical to the most complex numerical models show when forced with rising CO2 and NOx.

    All the indicators: sea levels, ocean heat content, surface temperatures, glaciers, upper air temperatures etc are consistent with projections from rising GHGs. The regional trends are consistent with rising then falling loadings of sulphate aerosols.

    Disbelieving climate change really takes an effort of will and imagination. Many have tried, and time after time their alternative theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not impossible we’ve all got this terribly wrong, nothings impossible, but it would be the greatest scientific error of all time. It would be equivalent to the theory of evolution being conclusively refuted.

    The only reason it’s remotely controversial is not scientific, it’s political. Because Americans (almost entirely, though the Russians are at it too) have decided to make it a culture war battle.
    The desire of some people, like Peck, to disbelieve reality because it doesn't match their ideology is the greatest problem in modern politics and governance. (Maybe "modern" is unnecessary there?) I am glad that climate change denial, anti-vaxx, UFOs and Ukrainian bioweapon labs are still mostly on the fringe of politics in the UK, unlike the US where the Republican Party has been eviscerated by fantasies (voter fraud, "Sound of Freedom", drag queen threat, hormones being given to 5 year olds, Hillary Clinton's emails are in Ukraine, Jewish space laser, etc.).
    The US left compound it too though. By making climate change mitigation all about adopting the checklist of things the left always wanted but were afraid to ask, they are complicit in politicising it too.

    We have managed to get to a decent position in Britain recently where we can talk green economic growth and renewables in a nice mid century white-heat tone without having to reach for the radical degrowth stuff that gets peoples backs up.
    Climate change is a major issue affecting the world, which raises many difficult questions. So of course it's political. The left aren't "complicit in politicising it", nor are the non-denying right: how could it be anything other than political?

    The left propose solutions to climate change that are consistent with their other views. Why is that a surprise? The (non-denying) right propose solutions to climate change that are consistent with their other views.

    There are conspiracists struggling with reality from across the political spectrum, as with the anti-Semitic views seen on the left that infected parts of the UK Labour Party. I picked out the Republican Party as an egregious example of what's gone wrong, not to say that only those on the right can be wrong.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    What a terrible view


  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,947
    Andy_JS said:
    I can see I was there in 2006 and the conversation was very civilised.

    Any way of telling when I joined and seeing other posts?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,149

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
    On my way back from 35 C Valencia to the cold, wet Midlands tomorrow. If French ATC don't strike and the winds at EMA abate sufficiently, that is.
    EMA - Will temperatures Soar?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,149
    Sandpit said:

    What a terrible view


    Air quality seems shite :lol:
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 719
    Miklosvar said:

    Penddu2 said:

    lightweights...


    What are we looking at?
    Next week in Doha. Typical for our summer - peaks at around 48 end of June/early July. Headline temp will fall to around 40 for next month or so but humidity will soar making it extremely unpleasant until mid-Sept
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 52,149
    Penddu2 said:

    lightweights...


    34 at night???
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    edited July 2023
    TimS said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    There’s ample physics behind it which everyone in atmospheric science has been immersed in for decades (arguably over a century). It’s what everything from the most basic statistical to the most complex numerical models show when forced with rising CO2 and NOx.

    All the indicators: sea levels, ocean heat content, surface temperatures, glaciers, upper air temperatures etc are consistent with projections from rising GHGs. The regional trends are consistent with rising then falling loadings of sulphate aerosols.

    Disbelieving climate change really takes an effort of will and imagination. Many have tried, and time after time their alternative theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not impossible we’ve all got this terribly wrong, nothings impossible, but it would be the greatest scientific error of all time. It would be equivalent to the theory of evolution being conclusively refuted.

    The only reason it’s remotely controversial is not scientific, it’s political. Because Americans (almost entirely, though the Russians are at it too) have decided to make it a culture war battle.
    Which is why all the terrible lies about lab leak, and the conspiracy to cover it up as even a plausibility, were so thoroughly damaging, stupid and possibly calamitous

    Even if you are one of the few still convinced it came from the wet market, NO ONE can deny that “the science” actively conspired to hide the truth that the especially horrible novel bat coronavirus might actually have come from the lab 200m away striving to make novel bat coronaviruses especially horrible

    The Lancet Letter denouncing lab leak as a “baseless conspiracy” (while hiding the involvement of the authors at the actual Wuhan lab!), the Proximal Origins Nature Paper, dismissing lab leak entirely (and now, we know, steered by Fauci and Daszak even as its authors backpedal)

    Whatever the actual origins of the virus, this was one conspiracy that really happened and was confected by highly intelligent “experts” to hoodwink the public. Stupid twats. So now every other conspiracy looks that bit more valid
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    Sandpit said:

    Well it’s a bit more humid than I’d like, but here’s my view. It’s higher than the one in Singapore.



    Impressively high. But a bit of a heat haze? UAE, I presume?

    That must be one of the loftiest pools on the planet?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035

    Sandpit said:

    What a terrible view


    Air quality seems shite :lol:
    Yeah, a little too humid today. But summer in Dubai, what does one expect?
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,866
    TimS said:

    ClippP said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    And squandered all the proceeds from North Sea Oil.
    Used the proceeds from North Sea Oil to deal with the transformation and modernisation of the economy away from uncompetitive heavy industries.
    Uh-huh? Good job Germany had all that North Sea Oil too then.
    Germany had an industrial base that had been completely rebuilt by the allies only 30 years earlier. There really was no comparison.
    Is there then, in your opinion, any possible comparable country? If not, it's hard to prove your incorrect argument without a window into the alternative universe where a UK PM made sensible use of the North Sea Oil bonanza.
    Again, looking at it in isolation is not realistic. In comparison with the rest of Europe the UK went from 'the sick man of Europe' in the late 70s to one of the leading economies at the end of the 80s. We did make sensible use of North Sea oil. The alternative was to continue as a backward, failing, deindustrialising nation ruled by the unions and facing unsustainable challenges from the rest of the world.

    Did Thatcher do everything (or even most) things right? No. But on the transformation of the economy on a national scale she was spot on.
    I wonder what Thatcherism without EEC membership would have looked like. Possibly a softer landing because British industry would have had some protection from continental imports.
    No Nissan factory for a start.
    If the Nissan factory symbolised a broader trend of manufacturing investment due to EEC membership, then it wouldn't stand out in the way that it still does.
    Interesting history of Japanese industrial investment and trade blocs.

    In the 1980s Japanese auto and electronics firms went on an investment binge in Europe. They tended to build factories in Catalonia, Alsace, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, and Wales. Especially in the Welsh Valleys and around Wrexham.

    They needed to assemble in the EU in order to benefit from rules of origin and avoid customs duties. Most were just final assembly plants. I visited one in France a few years ago where they just bunged together printer modules and put the right instruction manual in before boxing up.

    Then a few years ago the EU and Japan eliminated tariffs on most electronics products. This coincided with major profitability challenges for most of them (in fact the majority were loss making). So Japanese businesses started to close factories in
    Europe and ship either from Japan or increasingly from China and Thailand.

    Automotive retains its protective tariffs, hence why the big car factories for the Japanese and American companies remain in Britain abc the EU (and its neighbours with preferential tariff agreements, like Serbia).
    Automotive tariff elimination on Japanese imports into the EU began in 2019, and by 2026 tarrifs will be zero:

    https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_785

    (2026 is also the date for Uk tariffs for Japanese cars to drop to zero)
  • Sandpit said:

    What a terrible view


    That's not for me. Heights terrify me. I get consumed by an irrational fear that I might suddenly lose my mind and vault over the railing.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    carnforth said:

    TimS said:

    ClippP said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    And squandered all the proceeds from North Sea Oil.
    Used the proceeds from North Sea Oil to deal with the transformation and modernisation of the economy away from uncompetitive heavy industries.
    Uh-huh? Good job Germany had all that North Sea Oil too then.
    Germany had an industrial base that had been completely rebuilt by the allies only 30 years earlier. There really was no comparison.
    Is there then, in your opinion, any possible comparable country? If not, it's hard to prove your incorrect argument without a window into the alternative universe where a UK PM made sensible use of the North Sea Oil bonanza.
    Again, looking at it in isolation is not realistic. In comparison with the rest of Europe the UK went from 'the sick man of Europe' in the late 70s to one of the leading economies at the end of the 80s. We did make sensible use of North Sea oil. The alternative was to continue as a backward, failing, deindustrialising nation ruled by the unions and facing unsustainable challenges from the rest of the world.

    Did Thatcher do everything (or even most) things right? No. But on the transformation of the economy on a national scale she was spot on.
    I wonder what Thatcherism without EEC membership would have looked like. Possibly a softer landing because British industry would have had some protection from continental imports.
    No Nissan factory for a start.
    If the Nissan factory symbolised a broader trend of manufacturing investment due to EEC membership, then it wouldn't stand out in the way that it still does.
    Interesting history of Japanese industrial investment and trade blocs.

    In the 1980s Japanese auto and electronics firms went on an investment binge in Europe. They tended to build factories in Catalonia, Alsace, Dusseldorf and Hamburg, and Wales. Especially in the Welsh Valleys and around Wrexham.

    They needed to assemble in the EU in order to benefit from rules of origin and avoid customs duties. Most were just final assembly plants. I visited one in France a few years ago where they just bunged together printer modules and put the right instruction manual in before boxing up.

    Then a few years ago the EU and Japan eliminated tariffs on most electronics products. This coincided with major profitability challenges for most of them (in fact the majority were loss making). So Japanese businesses started to close factories in
    Europe and ship either from Japan or increasingly from China and Thailand.

    Automotive retains its protective tariffs, hence why the big car factories for the Japanese and American companies remain in Britain abc the EU (and its neighbours with preferential tariff agreements, like Serbia).
    Automotive tariff elimination on Japanese imports into the EU began in 2019, and by 2026 tarrifs will be zero:

    https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_785

    (2026 is also the date for Uk tariffs for Japanese cars to drop to zero)
    But not Chinese cars, or components like EV batteries, which is of course the next big problem until Europe gets its battery factories up and running.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    TimS said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Peck said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Temperatures in Israel. These are extreme


    It gets hot in the Middle East, really?
    Israel is in Europe! See Eurovision passim

    In all seriousness, talking of mind changes I’ve gone from being mildly skeptical about anthro global warming to generally accepting it is happening. And happening quite fast

    PB was a part of the reason I changed (tho there were many other reasons - not least seeing it with my own eyes)
    You need to have a look at Mill's methods for investigating and showing causation:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill's_Methods

    How on earth can you say A results from B when A has resulted from not-B so many times?
    That was what I used to think: and was the main basis of my skepticism. What about the medieval warm period, huh? Who was driving all the SUVs in the 12th century, eh? And are we even warming anyway, why did temps flatline from about 1998?

    But then I travelled so much and saw 1 practical evidence of ongoing warming (like glaciers shrinking or wine making shifting) and 2 all the damn people. There are just so many people everywhere. It is hard to believe we are not changing the planet and we are pumping out so much pollution and smoke and whatever…

    AGW makes basic sense. We have altered the planet. Perhaps catastrophically. I am personally more concerned by things like the insect crash and species decline than I am by warming, for the moment

    We can adapt to warmth. It might even be good. But if all the insects die we’re fucked
    What's your reasoning for believing there's a causal link though? No serious person disputes either 1 or 2.
    But heavyweight pro-AGW influencers certainly like to amalgamate AGW scepticism with a rejection of 1. Obama, for example.
    There’s ample physics behind it which everyone in atmospheric science has been immersed in for decades (arguably over a century). It’s what everything from the most basic statistical to the most complex numerical models show when forced with rising CO2 and NOx.

    All the indicators: sea levels, ocean heat content, surface temperatures, glaciers, upper air temperatures etc are consistent with projections from rising GHGs. The regional trends are consistent with rising then falling loadings of sulphate aerosols.

    Disbelieving climate change really takes an effort of will and imagination. Many have tried, and time after time their alternative theories don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not impossible we’ve all got this terribly wrong, nothings impossible, but it would be the greatest scientific error of all time. It would be equivalent to the theory of evolution being conclusively refuted.

    The only reason it’s remotely controversial is not scientific, it’s political. Because Americans (almost entirely, though the Russians are at it too) have decided to make it a culture war battle.
    The desire of some people, like Peck, to disbelieve reality because it doesn't match their ideology is the greatest problem in modern politics and governance. (Maybe "modern" is unnecessary there?) I am glad that climate change denial, anti-vaxx, UFOs and Ukrainian bioweapon labs are still mostly on the fringe of politics in the UK, unlike the US where the Republican Party has been eviscerated by fantasies (voter fraud, "Sound of Freedom", drag queen threat, hormones being given to 5 year olds, Hillary Clinton's emails are in Ukraine, Jewish space laser, etc.).
    The whole UFO/UAP flap is entirely bipartisan. There are senators and pundits and journalists on both sides convinced that Something is Up. The only ex president who has dismissed it entirely is Trump. Whereas Obama has made notably leading remarks

    Of course they could all be lying, mad, or part of the same psy-ops, but the idea this issue divides on party/culture war lines is wholly wrong. It is one of the few issues that DOESN’T
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well it’s a bit more humid than I’d like, but here’s my view. It’s higher than the one in Singapore.



    Impressively high. But a bit of a heat haze? UAE, I presume?

    That must be one of the loftiest pools on the planet?
    Yeah, local holiday for wifey’s birthday. Address Beach Resort Dubai. The pool is 77 floors up. Not as big as the Singapore one, but a few meters higher. Hong Kong is claiming one 100 floors up, but that looks like its inside rather than outside.

  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,167
    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,869

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
    There are indeed armies of people around the world looking to change the weather. Cloud seeding is real, and hot parts of the world are trying to generate sufficient rainfall to grow crops in the desert.
    https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/06/26/how-drones-could-make-cloud-seeding-more-precise/
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    Talk about throwing good money after bad.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    TimS said:

    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

    Or quite high up in the Swiss Alps, Dolomites, Tatras

    I’m off to Poland where it will be warm but not, I hope, roasting
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,069
    edited July 2023

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    If someone could get the showers to stay away from Birmingham, that would be good. It's getting in the way of T20 Finals Day!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    kle4 said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    Talk about throwing good money after bad.
    Well, it's Sainsbury's. Lots of stuff at too high a price for the quality.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Sandpit said:

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
    There are indeed armies of people around the world looking to change the weather. Cloud seeding is real, and hot parts of the world are trying to generate sufficient rainfall to grow crops in the desert.
    https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/06/26/how-drones-could-make-cloud-seeding-more-precise/
    Easiest thing to change is local microclimate. Just cut down trees and plant crops, or build houses with dark roofs, and you immediately alter the thermal properties of the surface, especially at night.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Sandpit said:

    What a terrible view


    That's not for me. Heights terrify me. I get consumed by an irrational fear that I might suddenly lose my mind and vault over the railing.
    Yes, they are engineering marvels but not for me either. I get wobbly legs only a few floors up.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Sandpit said:

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
    There are indeed armies of people around the world looking to change the weather. Cloud seeding is real, and hot parts of the world are trying to generate sufficient rainfall to grow crops in the desert.
    https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/06/26/how-drones-could-make-cloud-seeding-more-precise/
    The fools, didn't they see this documentary on what happens with that?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostorm
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

    Or quite high up in the Swiss Alps, Dolomites, Tatras

    I’m off to Poland where it will be warm but not, I hope, roasting
    Poland looks very decent for the next week.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    edited July 2023
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Lord Sainsbury leaves record £10m donation to Tories
    Figures from probate office show he left a gross estate of £602m, reduced to £599m after his affairs were finalised

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/15/lord-sainsbury-record-donation-conservative-party/ (£££)

    Inheritance tax? What inheritance tax?

    THat donation would be IHT-deductible, of course.
    Donations to charity are deductible. I thought political parties weren't charities?
    Technically, the donation is to the Conservative Party Foundation which says:-

    Inheritance tax-free status
    The Conservative Foundation has an inheritance tax-free status which mean that any legacy you leave is free of inheritance tax. This is something you may want to consider when talking to your solicitor.

    https://www.theconservativefoundation.co.uk/how-leave-legacy
    They are solicitors.

    They take our money and fuck us.
    It's for our own good. My lawyer said so.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Sandpit said:

    Well it’s a bit more humid than I’d like, but here’s my view. It’s higher than the one in Singapore.



    Thanks for the pics.

    However, personally would prefer spending a week in the dystopian hell of Marietta, Ohio (or Point Pleasant, WVa) than a day where you are.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

    Or quite high up in the Swiss Alps, Dolomites, Tatras

    I’m off to Poland where it will be warm but not, I hope, roasting
    Poland looks very decent for the next week.
    Shame Poland is a tiny bit boring. But maybe I can find some more excitement *nearby*
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    I'm sure we'll get there, but given how complex weather systems interact, which make long term predictions useless even now, and with the existence of cycles that might go over thousands of years, I'd be extremely worried anything done in area X would have massive unforseen consequences in area Y.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437
    No mention of Wimbledon.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

    Or quite high up in the Swiss Alps, Dolomites, Tatras

    I’m off to Poland where it will be warm but not, I hope, roasting
    Poland looks very decent for the next week.
    Shame Poland is a tiny bit boring. But maybe I can find some more excitement *nearby*
    F1 are in Hungary next weekend.

    If you’re feeling properly adventurous, get the train from Warsaw to Kiev.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    The real damage was done by allowing monopolies to continue to operate as unrestrained monopolies post privatisation.

    The underpricing was deliberate, as noted by one of those involved in the process:
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/16/i-worked-on-privatisation-england-water-1989-failed-regime
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
    There are indeed armies of people around the world looking to change the weather. Cloud seeding is real, and hot parts of the world are trying to generate sufficient rainfall to grow crops in the desert.
    https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/06/26/how-drones-could-make-cloud-seeding-more-precise/
    The fools, didn't they see this documentary on what happens with that?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostorm
    Looks splendidly naff.

    And there's the Lynmouth conspiracy theory. But, as water wars here and there show, artificial rain in one place and drought further down the line make a combustible combination.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    It is a staple of conspiracy theories, but there's apparently a good deal that we *can* do to manipulate the weather, and not helping to calm the conspiracies is the fact that America has a weather army?
    There are indeed armies of people around the world looking to change the weather. Cloud seeding is real, and hot parts of the world are trying to generate sufficient rainfall to grow crops in the desert.
    https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/06/26/how-drones-could-make-cloud-seeding-more-precise/
    The fools, didn't they see this documentary on what happens with that?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostorm
    Looks splendidly naff.
    It's a Gerard Butler movie, that is one of his strengths.
  • PeckPeck Posts: 517
    edited July 2023
    Cicero said:

    Carnyx said:

    Omnium said:

    HYUFD said:

    PJH said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Regarding Squareroot's view that things were equally bad, or worse in 2010: I appreciate that this is a not uncommon view.

    Never mind attacking Sunak, Labour should produce a set of posters and adverts which clearly paint the picture of how much better the period 1997-2010 was for the UK than 2010-2023/24 has been. It really wouldn't be hard, some simple graphs or simple statements of things like:

    - NHS waiting times
    - Real income
    - Debt (seriously, who'd have thought would be a higher share of GDP now than in 2010?)
    - Growth
    - Inflation
    - Immigration
    - House ownership %
    - Days lost to strikes

    I am sure PBers can think of a few others (number of Cabinet members prosecuted?)

    You'd have to exclude the 2008-10 period.

    The economy was in better shape, pre-2008, than now.
    Not only that but ignore the effects of Brexit, covid and war in Ukraine all in the last 3 years, which are the unique drivers to where we are today
    More excuses than a pregnant nun!
    Hard to face reality then
    I'm sure you were arguing that we should ignore the Global Financial Crisis when thinking about howe to vote back in 2010, Big_G ;-)

    In truth, every government faces unexpected events. Labour had 9/11, 7/7 and the GFC; Tories had Brexit, Covid, Ukraine.
    But Brexit was entirely of the Conservative Government's making.

    You can't put that down as an "act of God" unless your god is called Boris Johnson.
    Indeed true, but Big_G was using it as a reason for the Tories utter screw-up of the economy over the past 13 years, so I allowed him that one.

    Some Tories, of course, still cling to the idea that the GFC was all Labour's fault (in which case they had a mighty impressive ability to influence the global economy).

    Bottom line though, are there any PB posters, of whatever persuasion, who think the Tories have managed the economy at all well?
    I'd say that their economic management has been about average, for rich world governments, from 2010 to date.

    Almost every rich country has been dealt a rotten hand, over the past 13 years.

    Real criticism of the government lies elsewhere, IMHO. The corruption, the infighting, and the very odd sense of priorities, in terms of public spending. The almost wilful ineptititude with which they run institutions.
    I am curious about how the Tories get their reputation for good management of the economy? In my adult lifetime the only period of sustained econmic growth has come under Labour (1997-2007).

    I entered adulthood in the Thatcher years in the middle of a long recession. I started work on 1988 on a slight economic upswing from a low base but by the time we got to February 1989 things were on the down again and my friends seeking work a year behind me all really struggled to find jobs. We also had a burst of 10% inflation.

    The early 90s were grim, we fell out of the ERM, there was a property bust, and I lost my job twice in that period, and of my friends wasn't alone. I will concede that having made a complete pig's ear of everything Major and Clarke provided a steadier hand at the tiller from about 94 onwards but by then their reputation was in tatters anyway.

    The we get to 2010. I felt at the time that some austerity was needed for a while to balance the books. It was probably too much for too long even under the coalition, but once the restraining had of the LDs was removed it has been an utter shitshow.

    On the other hand under Labour not only did the economy grow, the public realm also visibly improved. The GFC revealed that they hadn't been attentive enough in building up reserves for a rainy day, as in fact they had done in the first few years. But overall 1997-2010 is a far better record than anything the Tories can point at, without even having to bother to look up statistics.

    Looking at the current Labour leadership, Starmer seems more of a conservative than anyone in the current Conservative Party. Yet "everyone" is scared of Labour trashing the economy. Why?
    Well Thatcher did cut strikes, slash the top income tax rate, rejuvinate Docklands, expand working class property ownership via council house sales and privatise inefficient nationalise industries. Major cut inflation.

    Unemployment now at 4% half the 8% unemployment Labour left in 2010
    AKA:

    Took away workers' rights
    Gave tax cuts to the rich
    Allowed the proceeds of a bullion robbery to be laundered through property development
    Sold off public assets on the cheap
    Sold off even more public assets on the cheap and pissed away the money
    Could you give me an example of a public asset sold cheaply?
    Council house. Much more cheaply than any discount for sitting tenant would justify.

    And, more recently, up north - vide Private Eye on Teesside.
    Most privatization was done at low prices in order to allow profits to those who stagged the issue, BT nearly doubled for example.
    Don't forget the huge fees paid to City firms for "advising" on exactly how to break up the assets, and also on the share opening prices. When share prices then doubled or trebled on the real market, they didn't pay the fees back. They proceeded to advise on the next privatisation job. (Clearly it's not only in the state sector where you don't get the sack for supposedly - and in theses cases, highly lucratively - f***ing up.)

    The propaganda messages of the time were that finance capital knows best, state ownership is a dinosaur, and the City of London is where a lot of "wealth" is created.

    Rail privatisation is another example of a massive heist. Huge profits were made by the "advisers", then by "stags" if one wants to use that term, and the sector then started receiving far more in state subsidies than it did when it was in state hands. What a success, eh? Aka the thieving of public assets by regime-connected oligarchs. Kleptocracy. But has a single person ever gone to jail for it?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    By the way, today's troll was pretty shit, wasn't s/he?

    Came across as stupid as Susan Acland-Hood after the third glass of champers, and that is saying something.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,972

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    With the rest of the northern hemisphere enduring a heat wave, how come autumn has arrived two months early in Blighty?

    Very interesting pattern. We have unusually strong westerlies and a stuck pattern bringing coolish (but not that cool) weather to Northern Europe all the way to Finland, and that’s bottling up the heat to the South. The polar opposite of the June pattern where we had high pressure in the North and cool wet weather in the Med.

    Once patterns get established they seem to stick for longer these days. That sounds anecdotal but there is some evidence to support this. Some signs of a pattern change at the end of the month. The current westerlies are at least partly boosted by the inactive phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation in the tropics. If that flips then we may flip too.

    This sort of weather pattern is quite kind to the extreme South East. Kent got 23C yesterday while most of us were cold and wet. Even today it’s been 21C there.
    I am near certain we get stuck in prolonged patterns more than we used to

    Like the amazing sunny spring of lockdown 1, or the endless grey cold winter of lockdown 3. Weather that just goes on and on. It’s just not British

    Weakening Gulf Stream?

    There's some evidence that one of the influences of low solar activity is more blocking high pressures affecting the Atlantic jet stream. This would lead to more stuck patterns of weather. The last couple of solar cycles have been a bit weaker.

    There's still quite a lot of doubt about this, because no-one has a convincing mechanistic explanation for the connection, there's so much variability that the statistics are weak, and blocking patterns are one of the synoptic features that climate models still struggle most with, but it is at least plausible.
    Possibly in the Northern mid latitudes (and mainly in winter) but the persistence thing is being observed around the world, in both hemispheres. China’s incredibly persistent heatwave last summer and autumn was one example, likewise the unprecedented persistence of droughts in places like South
    Africa and the Amazon in the last decade.

    Still very difficult to know what the main cause is, though soil moisture feedback could be one.

    One very annoying feature of this persistently shit July weather is that I’m stuck here having cracked 4 of my ribs last weekend and facing having to cancel the summer holiday in 2 weeks time. I’m still in 2 minds bug the family seem to have decided it’s not happening.
    On my way back from 35 C Valencia to the cold, wet Midlands tomorrow. If French ATC don't strike and the winds at EMA abate sufficiently, that is.
    I'm a little further down the coast from you, near to Alicante. Humidity has finally dropped a little after being somewhat over the top all week...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    TimS said:

    Casting my eye over the weather model output I’d say the best place for a holiday in Europe this coming week is Galicia from the Rias Baixas down into Northern Portugal.

    26-28C maxes with fresh nights in the mid teens, warm sea water lapping those white granite beaches. Ideal for a drop of Albariño or Vinho Verde.

    Or quite high up in the Swiss Alps, Dolomites, Tatras

    I’m off to Poland where it will be warm but not, I hope, roasting
    Poland looks very decent for the next week.
    Shame Poland is a tiny bit boring. But maybe I can find some more excitement *nearby*
    As I recall @Dura_Ace found plenty of excitement in Gdańsk that time...
  • PeckPeck Posts: 517
    edited July 2023
    kle4 said:

    As a kid raised on Look & Learn and World of Wonder, weather manipulation seem to be a staple of the brave new world to which we were about to head; afaics we’re still nowhere near being able to whip up a handy rainstorm where we need it (or prevent one). The only weather manipulation we’re capable of seems to be the unwitting sort that’s part the substantial package of us royally fucking up the planet.

    I'm sure we'll get there, but given how complex weather systems interact, which make long term predictions useless even now, and with the existence of cycles that might go over thousands of years, I'd be extremely worried anything done in area X would have massive unforseen consequences in area Y.
    The people who order up this sh** and the scientists who do their bit for the effort don't care about such considerations.

    Cf. the Four Pests campaign in China. Whoopsadaisy!

    Incidentally, highly organised scientific research is about 100 years old. Started with DuPont in the USA. Doesn't go back to Francis Bacon or for that matter anyone else at Trinity College.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,724
    35 years ago today Die Hard was released. Seems a bit odd for a so-called Xmas film.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited July 2023
    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Tres said:

    35 years ago today Die Hard was released. Seems a bit odd for a so-called Xmas film.

    Well, Hallmark do make a lot of their 2 dozen Christmas films each year in the middle of summer.

    They're a guilty pleasure, and seeing which ones got more of a budget to at least pretend convincingly it is winter, or actually are made in winter, can be fun.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited July 2023
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n

    PART 3: TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS
    "...There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that [@Andy_JS's] spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in...Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule [the lowest Labour lead is the true one, disproven in 2017?], Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle)..." @LostPassword, see https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...3/n

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    edited July 2023
    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n

    I thought it still was on Wordpress, just the comments were on Vanilla?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited July 2023
    viewcode said:


    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n
    PART 3: TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS
    "...There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that [@Andy_JS's] spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in...Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule [the lowest Labour lead is the true one, disproven in 2017?], Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle)..." @LostPassword, see https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...3/n
    PART 4: USERSHIP: POLITICIANS
    As others have pointed out, some politicians have read or posted on it. David Cameron is rumoured and Louise Mensch with more certainty. The user "snowflake5" referred to as "Snowflake" is thought to be a Labour politician: their blog is here http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ and archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230525092742/http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ . A post she made is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061122100417/http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/31/browns-price-tightens-to-pre-cameron-levels/ Three others are speculated, including Stewart Jackson...4/n
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:


    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n
    PART 3: TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS
    "...There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that [@Andy_JS's] spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in...Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule [the lowest Labour lead is the true one, disproven in 2017?], Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle)..." @LostPassword, see https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...3/n
    PART 4: USERSHIP: POLITICIANS
    As others have pointed out, some politicians have read or posted on it. David Cameron is rumoured and Louise Mensch with more certainty. The user "snowflake5" referred to as "Snowflake" is thought to be a Labour politician: their blog is here http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ and archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230525092742/http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ . A post she made is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061122100417/http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/31/browns-price-tightens-to-pre-cameron-levels/ Three others are speculated, including Stewart Jackson...4/n
    PART 5: USERSHIP: DEPARTURES
    PBers that have died over the years include @Plato/@PlatoSays/@PlatoSaid, @MarkSenior, @nichomar, @calum, @SBS. I know there are others and if you know their PB name please let me know. People who have been banned for good and bad reasons include @RodCrosby, @isam, @SeanT and @MrEd, although some may have returned under another alias. People who have left of their own accord are legion, including @Socrates and @antifrank, the latter of which outed himself as Alistair Meeks and can be found here: https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/ ...5/n

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    ydoethur said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n

    I thought it still was on Wordpress, just the comments were on Vanilla?
    Indeed, the main site is hosted on WordPress and the comments on Vanilla.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:


    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n
    PART 3: TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS
    "...There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that [@Andy_JS's] spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in...Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule [the lowest Labour lead is the true one, disproven in 2017?], Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle)..." @LostPassword, see https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...3/n
    PART 4: USERSHIP: POLITICIANS
    As others have pointed out, some politicians have read or posted on it. David Cameron is rumoured and Louise Mensch with more certainty. The user "snowflake5" referred to as "Snowflake" is thought to be a Labour politician: their blog is here http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ and archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230525092742/http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ . A post she made is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061122100417/http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/31/browns-price-tightens-to-pre-cameron-levels/ Three others are speculated, including Stewart Jackson...4/n
    PART 5: USERSHIP: DEPARTURES
    PBers that have died over the years include @Plato/@PlatoSays/@PlatoSaid, @MarkSenior, @nichomar, @calum, @SBS. I know there are others and if you know their PB name please let me know. People who have been banned for good and bad reasons include @RodCrosby, @isam, @SeanT and @MrEd, although some may have returned under another alias. People who have left of their own accord are legion, including @Socrates and @antifrank, the latter of which outed himself as Alistair Meeks and can be found here: https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/ ...5/n
    PART 6: CREDITS AND SOURCES
    Thanks to those who gave replies about snowflake and PB, including @Andy_JS @SandyRentool, @Beibheirli_C, @Cookie, @LostPassword, @DecrepiterJohnL, @Sandpit

    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473585/#Comment_4473585
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473559/#Comment_4473559
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473568/#Comment_4473568
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473569/#Comment_4473569
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473583/#Comment_4473583
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473587/#Comment_4473587
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473578/#Comment_4473578
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...6/n

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:


    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    PART 1: ABOUT PB
    Politicalbetting.com is a UK website about political betting. It concentrates on elections in the UK and US, although it may stray into other countries at whim. It was founded by Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithson) and the admins are @rcs1000 and @TSE. ...1/n

    PART 2: HISTORY
    PB's first post was on https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/07/logos/ .
    Mike gave a bio a few days later: https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/03/24/about-politicalbettingcom/ . It was originally on WordPress(?). then migrated to Disqus, then to its present location....2/n
    PART 3: TRIUMPHS AND DISASTERS
    "...There are so many ways to demarcate the different periods of pb.com history. You could look at the great betting triumphs - Obama at 50-1, cleaning up on the SNP in 2015, that [@Andy_JS's] spreadsheet as the Brexit referendum count came in...Or you could look at the different polling debacles. The ICM ascendancy, the period of the Golden Rule [the lowest Labour lead is the true one, disproven in 2017?], Angus Reid and the daily YouGov poll, Ashcroft's constituency polling, the MRP (actually, that wasn't a debacle)..." @LostPassword, see https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...3/n
    PART 4: USERSHIP: POLITICIANS
    As others have pointed out, some politicians have read or posted on it. David Cameron is rumoured and Louise Mensch with more certainty. The user "snowflake5" referred to as "Snowflake" is thought to be a Labour politician: their blog is here http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ and archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230525092742/http://snowflake5.blogspot.com/ . A post she made is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20061122100417/http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/10/31/browns-price-tightens-to-pre-cameron-levels/ Three others are speculated, including Stewart Jackson...4/n
    PART 5: USERSHIP: DEPARTURES
    PBers that have died over the years include @Plato/@PlatoSays/@PlatoSaid, @MarkSenior, @nichomar, @calum, @SBS. I know there are others and if you know their PB name please let me know. People who have been banned for good and bad reasons include @RodCrosby, @isam, @SeanT and @MrEd, although some may have returned under another alias. People who have left of their own accord are legion, including @Socrates and @antifrank, the latter of which outed himself as Alistair Meeks and can be found here: https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/ ...5/n
    PART 6: CREDITS AND SOURCES
    Thanks to those who gave replies about snowflake and PB, including @Andy_JS @SandyRentool, @Beibheirli_C, @Cookie, @LostPassword, @DecrepiterJohnL, @Sandpit

    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473585/#Comment_4473585
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473559/#Comment_4473559
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473568/#Comment_4473568
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473569/#Comment_4473569
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473583/#Comment_4473583
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473587/#Comment_4473587
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473578/#Comment_4473578
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4473594/#Comment_4473594 ...6/n

    PART 7: ARCHIVING
    The site articles can be browsed by year, thus:
    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2004/
    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2005/
    .
    .
    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/
    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/
    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/ ...7/end
  • TresTres Posts: 2,724
    Wasn't there an other couple of Tory PPCs posting before the 2010 election? Marcus or Richard something.

    Plus Nick Palmer of course?
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 719

    Penddu2 said:

    lightweights...


    34 at night???
    Oh yes....delighful.....and soaring humidity
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited July 2023
    I thought it still was on Wordpress, just the comments were on Vanilla?

    Past the deadline for editing. My bad. Will include a corrections and clarifications section... :)
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,188
    edited July 2023
    Tres said:

    Wasn't there an other couple of Tory PPCs posting before the 2010 election? Marcus or Richard something.

    Plus Nick Palmer of course?

    TissuePrice! (Aaron something-or-other) [Edit: that was more recent than 2010]
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    I miss @Socrates
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 719
    Penddu2 said:

    Penddu2 said:

    lightweights...


    34 at night???
    Oh yes....delighful.....and soaring humidity
    This is weather right now...look at humidity and real-feel!!!


  • MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    https://news.sky.com/story/axing-of-inheritance-tax-is-some-way-off-but-much-depends-on-the-tories-fortunes-12921425

    "We're not talking imminent legislation or a pre-election Budget giveaway. This is one - potentially - for the manifesto, in a bid to win back those disgruntled Tory voters in the shires and the so-called "blue wall".

    And the official response from Number 10 has been lukewarm, to say the least. It's "future-scoping speculation", Number 10 told Sky News, and "requires a different kind of economic environment to the one we're operating in"."

    Pure kite flying.
  • Penddu2Penddu2 Posts: 719
    Dont believe anyone who tells you that it is cold in the desert at night.... (some maybe...but not in the Gulf)
This discussion has been closed.