The solution? Cut the private sector out of the decision-making process. Contract them in to build housing as directed by the council, the housing association, a regional housing board, whatever. But build the houses that people need in the places they need them. And rent them at a price they can afford.
And if we did that I'd be totally happy with keeping Right to Buy alongside -- council builds lots of houses, RTB gives a flow of those out to the private sector that should cause prices overall to fall, estates develop into a mix of social and private housing.
Deterring The Dragon: Listing Taiwanese Arms Acquisitions
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2023/08/deterring-dragon-listing-taiwanese-arms.html ...Nonetheless, significant concerns loom over the readiness of the Taiwanese Armed Forces. Taiwan currently finds itself comparatively ill-prepared for a full-fledged war with its powerful neighbour. To address these challenges, Taipei has begun implementing several lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, such as the importance of stockpiling munitions. These lessons have become crucial as China's rapid military expansion has eroded many of Taiwan's defensive advantages. Addressing these issues will be critical for Taiwan to bolster its defense capabilities and maintain its security in the face of evolving threats.
This article attempts to list (future) equipment acquisitions by the Republic of China's Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard Administration. This list focuses on heavy weaponry and doesn't include ATGMs, MANPADS, radars and ammunition and vessels of less than 1000 tons. This is updated as new acquisitions are reported. Our list showing active Taiwanese fighting vehicles can be viewed here...
The Taiwanese should build a high altitude reconnaissance version of this, which they could then call the F-CK-U2.
What Taiwan ought to be doing is building thousands of naval kamikaze drones. If they build enough of them and launch en-masse against a naval invasion force then it would I think cause devastation. Ukraine has shown how hard it is to stop them.
"Every police officer in Northern Ireland has data compromised in 'monumental' breach due to human error
The PSNI Assistant Chief Constable admitted the breach was made in "human error" and apologised to colleagues whose data was made public for two and a half to three hours."
Amazingly, some dangerous idiots still want the government to have yet more of our intimate personal data, even though it's obvious they can't keep it safe. Last year Labour were advocating ID cards to control illegal immigration.
... I would regard id cards as a sensible and proportionate measure...
UK 2020s politics is a long stream of illiberal measures designed to burden law-abiding citizens with whatever the fashionable nostrums of the day are. ID cards is a thing that keeps popping up, and it gets knocked down every time.
Not very effectively knocked down then. It's about 1% as scary to me as the surveillance by facial/numberplate recognition/cell phone which goes on 24/7 so if it has any practical value let's do it.
Again, coercing the individual. The question is not whether it is a good idea, but whether it is moral to fine/jail somebody for refusing to carry one. That would be state overkill.
When I lived in Switzerland i was legally obliged to carry my ID card/foreigner permit (carte des etrangers) at all times and if it was requested by the police or an official and I didn’t have it then I was liable to a fine. There was not one second where I felt that it was oppression by the state or an intrusion into my civil liberties.
In fact it was actually great to have one as with it so many activities were quicker - opening a bank account, collecting a parcel, registering with a gov department re tax or similar - because it was an official compulsory ID card that no functionary would refuse to accept as ID.
Sigh.
For the nth time. The problem isn’t the ID card. The problem isn’t the unique identifying code on it. The problem isn’t even the potential use of that unique code as a key on databases.
The problem is that every single time ID cards have been proposed (and he time that they were, briefly, actually implemented), they come with an attempt to link all our personal information together. And link it to biometric data - finger prints, face recognition. etc. and the make it accessible to everyone.
In the last such scheme, they were going to make everything the NHS had on you (for instance) available to council officials investigating fly tipping. When asked why, the response was that segregating data would be difficult and slow things down.
So if your finger print day was stolen, you’d just have to get new finger prints, eh?
It should be noted that personal for Important People (Politicians, senior civil servants, famous people who the government liked) *was* to be segregated. #NU10K
The only saving grace was that such an insane breach of every concept of data security would have gone the way of all such government projects. Collapsed after spending billions. Though in this case it would have got to the data leaking stage
Time to repost this admittedly brilliant analysis from a couple of years ago:
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
Civil Servants are only human, and humans are nosy, so the more information you make available to government officials the more information they will see.
If you think that if you had free access to a super-government database that you wouldn't be looking at your neighbour's income then you are kidding yourself. The best that can be hoped for is that you would have the good sense not to tell anyone that you had done so and keep the information to yourself.
Meanwhile in Estonia, all of those qualifiers apply, and the Estonian X-road (google) decentralizes the stores of data and provides a sentry programme for greater security, so there is no central store of data that can be so compromised.
The benefits in terms of efficiency are truly staggering, especially in health care, but the ability to verify your identity in a secure online environment saves a fortune in things like tax collection and financial transactions too.
Eventually Britain will need to adopt at least some part of these systems (and in the DVLA and the Passport Office it did use advice from Estonia)., the problem is that it involves understanding the issues involved and the UK political system is missing leaders with that kind of understanding.
I’ve actually spoken with civil servants on this issue.
The problem is that they are hard wired to believe in the Big Central Database. Access controls are seen as Impeding Good Government.
So all the briefing papers reflect this.
You would need to fire the top five ranks of the Home Office, en masse.
As an ex civil servant, I only wish that we had a tenth of the power that you attribute to us. We didn't.
And, in reference to an earlier comment of yours, the idea that under a previously-floated ID scheme council workers investigating fly-tipping would have had full access to people's NHS medical records is palpably absurd. They wouldn't.
We know this is true because Dominic Cummings repeatedly complained that government data sources were not linked except where his team did so unofficially and possibly illegally.
Which is why the Home Office wants ID cards and has done for decades, they’re not as interested in the cards themselves, as they are in the massive database of people that goes behind it.
Cummings was right about data available to decision-makers in government. Each department has various systems that report on their activities, none of which talk to each other, and much of the data is outdated by the time it’s compiled and sent to ministers. In a situation such as a pandemic, that speed and accuracy of data was vital to the decision-making process.
Re: senior civil service and specification of the system. It's how their minds work. Government Is Good. Therefore Government accessing all the data Is Good. GDPR - what is that?
On the access re: fly tipping - a bizarre feature of the system that was specified was that there was no segregation of data. . The complete data for an individual was accessible by any user of the system.
Yes, this is batshit insane.
But was how the system was specified. Because no department would say no, we don't want data. So the aggregate of the requirements awas that everyone got to see everything.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
Yes, it is deeply concerning.
The only people they seem to look after (and protect from policy) is the retired and they've dug a hole so deep there I struggle to see how they get out now.
Opposition will do a lot of the work.
Labour, in government, will be unlikely to resist the temptation to try to buy pensioner votes. I think some of the bias of the old to the Tories is in fact a bias of the old to the incumbent government.
Things could change quite rapidly, at least in terms of rhetoric and polling. But would a new Tory government, after a Starmer interregnum, be able to resist the temptation to buy pensioner votes? I have my doubts. (Well, okay, not many doubts, I'm fairly confident that governments of both sides will follow the path of least resistance and genuflect to the pensioner vote.)
OTOH, many pensioners will still vote Tory regardless, so why should SKS bother going all out Tory? Or (as remarked to me yesterday) so cowardly in his approach to Brexit etc. that he might as well be Tory. And ditto with baby starving, Scottish referendum, and so on and so forth.
The Tories have gone so far (as already remarked in the thread) it's probably impossible to rebalance things and make a fairer balance with the people actually doing the work without upsetting the pensioner vote irreparably (for instance, by imposing NI on all, or merging it with income tax, or cutting IHT allowances or converting them to CGT).
My argument is mainly grounded on what happened under the previous Labour government, rather than on hypotheticals about the future.
Under the Labour government of 1997-2010* we saw several moves that increased spending on pensioners. We had the first pension lock, to ensure there wasn't a repeat of low inflation leading to a tiny increase in the state pension. We had various freebies given to pensioners - TV licenses, bus passes, fuel allowances.
The consequence of this was seen in election results. In the 2010 GE the bias of the old to vote Tories was at its lowest since 1992.
Expect to see the same again. I'd be gobsmacked if pensioners were not reassured by Labour budgets, and I'd expect votes to change as they did before.
The attraction of buying the votes of pensioners is that it is really simple. The government only has to keep the money flowing. Sorting out the problems for younger voters, such as the housing crisis, might sound simple - just build more houses! - but runs into all sorts of other issues - Who will build them? Will there be enough building materials at a low enough price? Where? - which make them practically more difficult, and even in a best case scenario will take years to deliver tangible results.
* Actually, probably more correctly in the period 2001-2010. I'd have to dig out the details of when the various reforms were made. But the very small pension increase happened in the first Parliament, 1997-2001, and Labour consequently fell further behind with the pensioner vote at the 2001 GE. They learnt their lesson then and I don't think they will be looking for a refresher.
House building needs to be increased.
All of the problem you list are fixable over time.
When it was proposed to hire x,000 more police officers, some said it was actually impossible.
The current block is the hoarding of planning permission. Which is logical for various actors.
Imagine you are a big developer. You have the permission to build an estate of 5,000 homes. If you try and build 5,000 homes now
1) the local house prices will crash 2) the local council will find the strain on infrastructure intolerable 3) the NIMBYs will riot 4) finding the builders may be a problem
So, instead, you build 250 a year. That makes the council mellow. The NIMBYs will get bored with the inevitable. The house prices won’t crash. The building companies and suppliers you contract with will love a steady 20 years of work….
How many years have people been speaking about increasing housebuilding in Britain? Years and years and years and years. It took seven years to increase the number of completions in the UK from the 2012 nadir of 133k to 210k in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
So to take housebuilding up to 300k a year, and sustain it at that level for long enough to bring house prices down, is going to take more than one electoral cycle. To win the next-next election any government is going to need to keep pensioners on side.
House building is easy. Have land. Grant permission. Build.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the Build bit isn't happening. And what they are building is designed to generate the highest profit, not solve the local housing issue.
The solution? Cut the private sector out of the decision-making process. Contract them in to build housing as directed by the council, the housing association, a regional housing board, whatever. But build the houses that people need in the places they need them. And rent them at a price they can afford.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the permission bit isn't happening, and where it is happening its happening in blocs to an oligopoly of developers.
Cut out the oligopoly. No need for any single Council, HA, board or anything else.
Planning permission, if its to be kept, should be guaranteed and easily obtainable within a matter of days not months or years, one house at a time. Not one development at a time.
The permissions bit is happening - faster than the building.
This is a common effect in supply chains. You increase capacity in one thing - no apparent result. Because the next step in the chain is restricted to the old flow rate. Because of historical flows.
The point is not to give up. Just fix the next thing. And look for the next bottleneck.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Deterring The Dragon: Listing Taiwanese Arms Acquisitions
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2023/08/deterring-dragon-listing-taiwanese-arms.html ...Nonetheless, significant concerns loom over the readiness of the Taiwanese Armed Forces. Taiwan currently finds itself comparatively ill-prepared for a full-fledged war with its powerful neighbour. To address these challenges, Taipei has begun implementing several lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, such as the importance of stockpiling munitions. These lessons have become crucial as China's rapid military expansion has eroded many of Taiwan's defensive advantages. Addressing these issues will be critical for Taiwan to bolster its defense capabilities and maintain its security in the face of evolving threats.
This article attempts to list (future) equipment acquisitions by the Republic of China's Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard Administration. This list focuses on heavy weaponry and doesn't include ATGMs, MANPADS, radars and ammunition and vessels of less than 1000 tons. This is updated as new acquisitions are reported. Our list showing active Taiwanese fighting vehicles can be viewed here...
The Taiwanese should build a high altitude reconnaissance version of this, which they could then call the F-CK-U2.
What Taiwan ought to be doing is building thousands of naval kamikaze drones. If they build enough of them and launch en-masse against a naval invasion force then it would I think cause devastation. Ukraine has shown how hard it is to stop them.
I was just about to write exactly that. The naval drones that Ukraine has made are causing mayhem for the Russians in the Black Sea. They’re about 5m long, difficult for the enemy to pick out in the sea, and carry up to 500kg of explosives to blow a hole in the side of an enemy ship. They have a range of several hundred km as well, perhaps controlled by satellite comms as they approach their target as with air drones.
@Nigelb - to be fair, at least you acknowledge that Sinn Fein MPs would be liable to be held to the same standard. Perhaps a few more by-elections would be fun for us betting wise, but I'd be interested to hear Chris Bryant's view on this issue.
I honestly think it a sensible measure.
Because it requires both a vote of the entire House - and if there are to be consequences for the MP beyond a couple of weeks suspension (which if they're not attending is hardly draconian anyway) - a successful recall petition and majority vote of the MP's constituents, I really fail to see how this could be used, even by a malign majority in the Commons, to persecute an individual MP.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
Yes, it is deeply concerning.
The only people they seem to look after (and protect from policy) is the retired and they've dug a hole so deep there I struggle to see how they get out now.
Opposition will do a lot of the work.
Labour, in government, will be unlikely to resist the temptation to try to buy pensioner votes. I think some of the bias of the old to the Tories is in fact a bias of the old to the incumbent government.
Things could change quite rapidly, at least in terms of rhetoric and polling. But would a new Tory government, after a Starmer interregnum, be able to resist the temptation to buy pensioner votes? I have my doubts. (Well, okay, not many doubts, I'm fairly confident that governments of both sides will follow the path of least resistance and genuflect to the pensioner vote.)
OTOH, many pensioners will still vote Tory regardless, so why should SKS bother going all out Tory? Or (as remarked to me yesterday) so cowardly in his approach to Brexit etc. that he might as well be Tory. And ditto with baby starving, Scottish referendum, and so on and so forth.
The Tories have gone so far (as already remarked in the thread) it's probably impossible to rebalance things and make a fairer balance with the people actually doing the work without upsetting the pensioner vote irreparably (for instance, by imposing NI on all, or merging it with income tax, or cutting IHT allowances or converting them to CGT).
My argument is mainly grounded on what happened under the previous Labour government, rather than on hypotheticals about the future.
Under the Labour government of 1997-2010* we saw several moves that increased spending on pensioners. We had the first pension lock, to ensure there wasn't a repeat of low inflation leading to a tiny increase in the state pension. We had various freebies given to pensioners - TV licenses, bus passes, fuel allowances.
The consequence of this was seen in election results. In the 2010 GE the bias of the old to vote Tories was at its lowest since 1992.
Expect to see the same again. I'd be gobsmacked if pensioners were not reassured by Labour budgets, and I'd expect votes to change as they did before.
The attraction of buying the votes of pensioners is that it is really simple. The government only has to keep the money flowing. Sorting out the problems for younger voters, such as the housing crisis, might sound simple - just build more houses! - but runs into all sorts of other issues - Who will build them? Will there be enough building materials at a low enough price? Where? - which make them practically more difficult, and even in a best case scenario will take years to deliver tangible results.
* Actually, probably more correctly in the period 2001-2010. I'd have to dig out the details of when the various reforms were made. But the very small pension increase happened in the first Parliament, 1997-2001, and Labour consequently fell further behind with the pensioner vote at the 2001 GE. They learnt their lesson then and I don't think they will be looking for a refresher.
House building needs to be increased.
All of the problem you list are fixable over time.
When it was proposed to hire x,000 more police officers, some said it was actually impossible.
The current block is the hoarding of planning permission. Which is logical for various actors.
Imagine you are a big developer. You have the permission to build an estate of 5,000 homes. If you try and build 5,000 homes now
1) the local house prices will crash 2) the local council will find the strain on infrastructure intolerable 3) the NIMBYs will riot 4) finding the builders may be a problem
So, instead, you build 250 a year. That makes the council mellow. The NIMBYs will get bored with the inevitable. The house prices won’t crash. The building companies and suppliers you contract with will love a steady 20 years of work….
How many years have people been speaking about increasing housebuilding in Britain? Years and years and years and years. It took seven years to increase the number of completions in the UK from the 2012 nadir of 133k to 210k in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
So to take housebuilding up to 300k a year, and sustain it at that level for long enough to bring house prices down, is going to take more than one electoral cycle. To win the next-next election any government is going to need to keep pensioners on side.
House building is easy. Have land. Grant permission. Build.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the Build bit isn't happening. And what they are building is designed to generate the highest profit, not solve the local housing issue.
The solution? Cut the private sector out of the decision-making process. Contract them in to build housing as directed by the council, the housing association, a regional housing board, whatever. But build the houses that people need in the places they need them. And rent them at a price they can afford.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the permission bit isn't happening, and where it is happening its happening in blocs to an oligopoly of developers.
Cut out the oligopoly. No need for any single Council, HA, board or anything else.
Planning permission, if its to be kept, should be guaranteed and easily obtainable within a matter of days not months or years, one house at a time. Not one development at a time.
The permissions bit is happening - faster than the building.
This is a common effect in supply chains. You increase capacity in one thing - no apparent result. Because the next step in the chain is restricted to the old flow rate. Because of historical flows.
The point is not to give up. Just fix the next thing. And look for the next bottleneck.
Permissions bit isn't happening remotely enough, and will by definition always be faster than the building since it can't possibly be the other way around.
Permissions are slow to acquire and go to an oligopoly. That is the bottleneck.
In countries where permission goes a house at a time rather than en-bloc to developments there is no such bottleneck as development simply happens when and where it is needed.
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
One of my linguistic bugbears is misuse of the word "lifelong". Anderson was a member of the Labour Party until 2018. The fact he no longer is means, by definition, he was not a lifelong member of the Labour Party.
I'm reminded of my parents getting into a conversation with an elderly local gentleman in a Devon village (I forget which - let's say Newton Poppleford as I like the name). "Have you lived in Newton Poppleford all your life?" they asked. He thought for a moment and sagely replied, "Not yet."
Lifelong qualified with until seems correct and reasonable usage to me. (Although probably wasnt a Labour Member as a child anyway....)
Deterring The Dragon: Listing Taiwanese Arms Acquisitions
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2023/08/deterring-dragon-listing-taiwanese-arms.html ...Nonetheless, significant concerns loom over the readiness of the Taiwanese Armed Forces. Taiwan currently finds itself comparatively ill-prepared for a full-fledged war with its powerful neighbour. To address these challenges, Taipei has begun implementing several lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, such as the importance of stockpiling munitions. These lessons have become crucial as China's rapid military expansion has eroded many of Taiwan's defensive advantages. Addressing these issues will be critical for Taiwan to bolster its defense capabilities and maintain its security in the face of evolving threats.
This article attempts to list (future) equipment acquisitions by the Republic of China's Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard Administration. This list focuses on heavy weaponry and doesn't include ATGMs, MANPADS, radars and ammunition and vessels of less than 1000 tons. This is updated as new acquisitions are reported. Our list showing active Taiwanese fighting vehicles can be viewed here...
The Taiwanese should build a high altitude reconnaissance version of this, which they could then call the F-CK-U2.
What Taiwan ought to be doing is building thousands of naval kamikaze drones. If they build enough of them and launch en-masse against a naval invasion force then it would I think cause devastation. Ukraine has shown how hard it is to stop them.
They are already concentrating their defence acquisition priorities on building munition stockpiles. Droens will probably become part of that.
@Nigelb - to be fair, at least you acknowledge that Sinn Fein MPs would be liable to be held to the same standard. Perhaps a few more by-elections would be fun for us betting wise, but I'd be interested to hear Chris Bryant's view on this issue.
I honestly think it a sensible measure.
Because it requires both a vote of the entire House - and if there are to be consequences for the MP beyond a couple of weeks suspension (which if they're not attending is hardly draconian anyway) - a successful recall petition and majority vote of the MP's constituents, I really fail to see how this could be used, even by a malign majority in the Commons, to persecute an individual MP.
It seems entirely proportionate to the problem.
Yep this is the Sinn Fein safeguard. Motions to chuck out their MPs simply will not pass the house, they'll get the DUP voting in favour and that'll be about it.
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
A large chunk of the "provincial" "working class", or whatever other awkward label we choose to apply, has always voted Tory. More so since 1970 and the immigration issue, but even before then. So most of the people in Anderson's "strand" have never been Labour.
On topic, sort of: Our Gracious Host reminds me of a question I have been wondering about, off and on, for decades:
Are some (many?) environmentalists members of what it is fair to consider more a religious movement than a political movement?
@Jim_Miller - Yes, you are on the right lines. You may find it useful to look at any or all of the following:
* Triodos Bank - start with what the word and symbol mean
* a sequence of "extinctions" - straight outta Blavatsky
* the word "organic" when applied only to some kinds of food - got a very clear origin for this one
* anything to do with "people, planet, and profit" - the idea that there should be some kind of triple goal of serving the interests of the people, the planet, and commercial business - sometimes appearing as "social, environmental, and economic"
* who started the Green party in Germany
As someone who has been in various Green movements over the past decade - this is the first time I've heard of Triodos Bank.
You do know that the use of three words is just a rhetorical devise that seems to (for some cultural reason) resonate in the English language?
As for the references to Blavatsky and organic food - are these supposed to be suggestions about how the green movement are linked to fascism? Because even if we take that connection seriously (which we shouldn't) - fascism is still a political movement and not a religious one! And is also somewhat contradicted by your then weird reference to the German Green Party - which seems to have originated out of the West German / socialist parties.
It would be useful to know what one sees as the difference between a religious movement and a political one - it seems pretty clear to me but that someone is making this claim kind of confuses me.
The beliefs of environmentalists are material - they are based in the physical world, the science and scientific method and on a materialistic understanding of cause and effect. Indeed, the idea that man made climate change is possible and that we can do something about it is very much a material and not religious / spiritual view of existence. I have never been religious and don't really understand spirituality outside of the occasional sense of awe I get looking at things that exist, but I also can look at the data and the opinions of experts and go "we are destroying the possibility of future human life on this planet and have the means to prevent it".
If the issue is the inelasticity of the vote of Greens that is easily explained - if you are a single issue voter, or a voter who bases your politics on the position that a lot of other things don't really matter if we don't secure the sustainability of human life on this planet, then it isn't "pragmatic" to vote Labour when they say things like "if the Tories give 100s of new drilling contracts, we'll uphold them, even though we know that would be disastrous for the planet".
If you haven't looked at Triodos Bank before, I suggest you look at it now then.
Yes I know about the rhetorical law of threes. The point is those specific three words and ideas. "Social threefolding". Anthroposophy all the way.
"Organic" comes straight from Rudolf Steiner too. Check out the Betteshanger conference. In reality, all food is organic!
Nazism had many religious aspects. So did Ustashism. As for Italian fascism, well we might start with how it Nazified during the last two years of WW2 and the role that anthroposophists played in that process.
No the German Green party did not originate from the SPD. Have a look at Werner Vogel and Baldur Springmann. In your long involvement in various green movements did you ever take a look at Richard Walther Darré?
Then there's the idea of "transition towns". It really does NOT mean something cuddly, as many assume.
Recommended: writings by Peter Staudenmeier.
And another thing: nobody interested in the rise of Greenism can avoid taking a look at Rachel Carson, author of the loonhouse and extremely influential book "Silent Spring" in 1962.
Carson was a Steinerite puppet. You can read about that here:
PS Of course capitalism is polluting the effing world for the profits of a tiny minority. Of course it involves huge waste at every level. Also the exploitation of animals is an obscenity and I would like to see meat banned. These are no arguments for Greenism which is far right and Malthusian.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
Technology, technology, and technology.
As far as government goes, don’t be picking winners* but set out a framework for innovation and commercialisation of inventions.
As an example I follow, Formula 1 is a hotbed of innovation, and their technology in both engines and electric powertrains is transferring over to road cars. Car engines have never been more fuel efficient, and Mercedes now has an electric prototype car with a 1000km range from a 100kW battery.
*but for God’s sake, put in the order for the first half dozen Rolls Royce SMR reactors.
Re Sir Chris Bryant's sporty little gambit to ban non-attending parliamentarians, where does this leave Sinn Fein MPs?
One might argue "but that's different", but I think this is why we should steer well away from this sort of thing. The moment you create exceptions, it becomes very messy.
Where's the problem ? Suspend them for a sufficient period for a recall, and see if their constituents care enough to vote for one. We already know the answer.
It clearly demonstrates the measure isn't targeted at any individual, but rather provides a mechanism for the electorate to do something about an absentee MP, should they so wish.
I don't think even that would be necessary under Bryant's gambit.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
@Nigelb - to be fair, at least you acknowledge that Sinn Fein MPs would be liable to be held to the same standard. Perhaps a few more by-elections would be fun for us betting wise, but I'd be interested to hear Chris Bryant's view on this issue.
I honestly think it a sensible measure.
Because it requires both a vote of the entire House - and if there are to be consequences for the MP beyond a couple of weeks suspension (which if they're not attending is hardly draconian anyway) - a successful recall petition and majority vote of the MP's constituents, I really fail to see how this could be used, even by a malign majority in the Commons, to persecute an individual MP.
It seems entirely proportionate to the problem.
Yep this is the Sinn Fein safeguard. Motions to chuck out their MPs simply will not pass the house, they'll get the DUP voting in favour and that'll be about it.
Even if the House voted to suspend them for two weeks, it would be meaningless - particularly as they're neither attending or drawing a salary anyway. Their constituents would prevent any recall by election.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Haha. But yeah, good suggestion from pm215 to zero-rate VAT on bikes instead, though that isn't anywhere near the value of C2W if you take into account the interest-free loan.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
The debate is around what is going on in the orange bit.
That depends upon your assumptions of what goes into demographics and what does not.
Chronic conditions are lumped under "other costs" but demographics is the key determination of chronic conditions, so is that other, or is it demographics? Or both?
The better you get at keeping alive people with chronic conditions, the more you need to treat those conditions and the more chronic conditions they will acquire.
Re Sir Chris Bryant's sporty little gambit to ban non-attending parliamentarians, where does this leave Sinn Fein MPs?
One might argue "but that's different", but I think this is why we should steer well away from this sort of thing. The moment you create exceptions, it becomes very messy.
Where's the problem ? Suspend them for a sufficient period for a recall, and see if their constituents care enough to vote for one. We already know the answer.
It clearly demonstrates the measure isn't targeted at any individual, but rather provides a mechanism for the electorate to do something about an absentee MP, should they so wish.
I don't think even that would be necessary under Bryant's gambit.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
Absolutely - but I was considering a worst case scenario where the proposed procedure was weaponised to target an MP for party political reasons. Any such effort, without very good justification, would do far more damage to the party trying it on.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
FYI: If anyone is interested in what the Government actually spends money on, use COFOG data rather than department limits helps to cut through all the jargon. Social Protection - which includes benefits, state pension, social care - is enormous, but hasn't moved much since 2010.
For me, the biggest concern is the seemingly unstoppable rise in health spending, which is growing faster than our demographic profile would suggest. That might be a good thing, given it helps people have better lives, but much of that cost has been accrued from increases in obesity and inactivity.
The biggest COVID-19 failure was not taking the opportunity to sort that out, particularly given losing some weight was the easiest way you could improve your chances of not getting seriously ill.
Data on spending by function as a % of GDP is available here, in table 4.4.
Since 2000 spending as a % of GDP has risen by about 10.5pp to about 45.5%.
Biggest drivers are health (+3.5pp), debt interest (+2), and enterprise and economic development (+2). Then you have transport and social protection (+1 each) with "accounting adjustments" accounting for the remaining +1. Things like general bureaucracy, defence, public order, science, environmental protection and education are all small moves and zero overall.
So "welfare" (social protection) is small and probably pensions. Health is probably ageing related too. Debt interest comes from paying for Covid plus inflation and interest rate increases. "Enterprise and economic development" is an interesting one. Whatever it is, spending on it has risen 5x, mostly post Covid. Could be residual Covid support scheme spending but I thought that was done by FY22/23. Transport is maybe HS2 and other projects, and higher post Covid rail subsidies?
Anyway, key things are ageing and debt interest. Plus the big problem isn't the numerator of spending as % of GDP but the denominator - a weaker economy means we can't spend more on government without spending less elsewhere. That's down to ageing too, plus Covid and Ukraine, the aftermath of the GFC, with a side order of Brexit.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
The debate is around what is going on in the orange bit.
That depends upon your assumptions of what goes into demographics and what does not.
Chronic conditions are lumped under "other costs" but demographics is the key determination of chronic conditions, so is that other, or is it demographics? Or both?
The better you get at keeping alive people with chronic conditions, the more you need to treat those conditions and the more chronic conditions they will acquire.
It's quite simple to strip out the effect of demographic change if you know the prevalence of conditions by single year of age and gender in a baseline year. You just push your population data through that profile and you end up with a residual - the "other", unexplained growth.
All else held equal, NHS spending would've only grown marginally.
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
One of my linguistic bugbears is misuse of the word "lifelong". Anderson was a member of the Labour Party until 2018. The fact he no longer is means, by definition, he was not a lifelong member of the Labour Party.
I'm reminded of my parents getting into a conversation with an elderly local gentleman in a Devon village (I forget which - let's say Newton Poppleford as I like the name). "Have you lived in Newton Poppleford all your life?" they asked. He thought for a moment and sagely replied, "Not yet."
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
One of my linguistic bugbears is misuse of the word "lifelong". Anderson was a member of the Labour Party until 2018. The fact he no longer is means, by definition, he was not a lifelong member of the Labour Party.
I'm reminded of my parents getting into a conversation with an elderly local gentleman in a Devon village (I forget which - let's say Newton Poppleford as I like the name). "Have you lived in Newton Poppleford all your life?" they asked. He thought for a moment and sagely replied, "Not yet."
Lifelong qualified with until seems correct and reasonable usage to me. (Although probably wasnt a Labour Member as a child anyway....)
I know it is often used in that way, but the definition of "lifelong" is lasting throughout a person's life. Alternative words like "longstanding" exist for a state that has existed for much of a person's life. So the only thing that ends a lifelong association is death, not a change of heart.
That said, if someone says to me on the doorstep, "I'm a lifelong Conservative but enough is enough and I won't vote for those bastards again..." I rarely say, "Let me stop you there as I think you've misused the word 'lifelong'."
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
There is every reason to believe technological change will help, it already is. And there has been a dramatic success in the past 30 years for technology, in the past 300 years, and there is no reason to think such success won't continue in the future.
Besides - what is the alternative?
Curl into a ball and die? Go back to the stone age?
The only viable solution to get us to net zero, is zero emission clean technology. So get on board, or get out of the way.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Instead of compulsory maths until age 18, I would be in favour of a compulsory life skills course, which would include cookery, home management, personal healthcare, budgeting, arithmetic, how and why to vote, and basic DIY.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
There is every reason to believe technological change will help, it already is. And there has been a dramatic success in the past 30 years for technology, in the past 300 years, and there is no reason to think such success won't continue in the future.
Besides - what is the alternative?
Curl into a ball and die? Go back to the stone age?
The only viable solution to get us to net zero, is zero emission clean technology. So get on board, or get out of the way.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
The debate is around what is going on in the orange bit.
That depends upon your assumptions of what goes into demographics and what does not.
Chronic conditions are lumped under "other costs" but demographics is the key determination of chronic conditions, so is that other, or is it demographics? Or both?
The better you get at keeping alive people with chronic conditions, the more you need to treat those conditions and the more chronic conditions they will acquire.
It's quite simple to strip out the effect of demographic change if you know the prevalence of conditions by single year of age and gender in a baseline year. You just push your population data through that profile and you end up with a residual - the "other", unexplained growth.
All else held equal, NHS spending would've only grown marginally.
Except for the fact that we've become better at both diagnosing and treating chronic conditions.
And the better we do at it, the more people stay alive, longer, with more chronic conditions.
Someone in their seventies today will have more healthcare visits than someone in their seventies twenty years ago. That is because we've become better at both diagnosis and treatment. Your chart puts that down to "other" instead of "demographics", but the two are inextricably linked.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
Re Sir Chris Bryant's sporty little gambit to ban non-attending parliamentarians, where does this leave Sinn Fein MPs?
One might argue "but that's different", but I think this is why we should steer well away from this sort of thing. The moment you create exceptions, it becomes very messy.
Where's the problem ? Suspend them for a sufficient period for a recall, and see if their constituents care enough to vote for one. We already know the answer.
It clearly demonstrates the measure isn't targeted at any individual, but rather provides a mechanism for the electorate to do something about an absentee MP, should they so wish.
I don't think even that would be necessary under Bryant's gambit.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
Absolutely - but I was considering a worst case scenario where the proposed procedure was weaponised to target an MP for party political reasons. Any such effort, without very good justification, would do far more damage to the party trying it on.
Yes. It's notable that the only failed recall petition was in Northern Ireland (for Ian Paisley Jnr of the DUP rather than Sinn Fein). I'm doubtful a recall petition would pass if it came to that, and there is no reason to think a Sinn Fein candidate would lose a subsequent by-election even if enough unionists mobilised to make it happen ("Yes, we voted for an abstentionist MP - what part of that don't you understand?")
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
One of my linguistic bugbears is misuse of the word "lifelong". Anderson was a member of the Labour Party until 2018. The fact he no longer is means, by definition, he was not a lifelong member of the Labour Party.
I'm reminded of my parents getting into a conversation with an elderly local gentleman in a Devon village (I forget which - let's say Newton Poppleford as I like the name). "Have you lived in Newton Poppleford all your life?" they asked. He thought for a moment and sagely replied, "Not yet."
Lifelong qualified with until seems correct and reasonable usage to me. (Although probably wasnt a Labour Member as a child anyway....)
I know it is often used in that way, but the definition of "lifelong" is lasting throughout a person's life. Alternative words like "longstanding" exist for a state that has existed for much of a person's life. So the only thing that ends a lifelong association is death, not a change of heart.
That said, if someone says to me on the doorstep, "I'm a lifelong Conservative but enough is enough and I won't vote for those bastards again..." I rarely say, "Let me stop you there as I think you've misused the word 'lifelong'."
But I do think it.
What is the definition of until......
The meaning of the combination of lifelong and until is fairly clear and unambiguous to me at least.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
Yes, it is deeply concerning.
The only people they seem to look after (and protect from policy) is the retired and they've dug a hole so deep there I struggle to see how they get out now.
Opposition will do a lot of the work.
Labour, in government, will be unlikely to resist the temptation to try to buy pensioner votes. I think some of the bias of the old to the Tories is in fact a bias of the old to the incumbent government.
Things could change quite rapidly, at least in terms of rhetoric and polling. But would a new Tory government, after a Starmer interregnum, be able to resist the temptation to buy pensioner votes? I have my doubts. (Well, okay, not many doubts, I'm fairly confident that governments of both sides will follow the path of least resistance and genuflect to the pensioner vote.)
OTOH, many pensioners will still vote Tory regardless, so why should SKS bother going all out Tory? Or (as remarked to me yesterday) so cowardly in his approach to Brexit etc. that he might as well be Tory. And ditto with baby starving, Scottish referendum, and so on and so forth.
The Tories have gone so far (as already remarked in the thread) it's probably impossible to rebalance things and make a fairer balance with the people actually doing the work without upsetting the pensioner vote irreparably (for instance, by imposing NI on all, or merging it with income tax, or cutting IHT allowances or converting them to CGT).
My argument is mainly grounded on what happened under the previous Labour government, rather than on hypotheticals about the future.
Under the Labour government of 1997-2010* we saw several moves that increased spending on pensioners. We had the first pension lock, to ensure there wasn't a repeat of low inflation leading to a tiny increase in the state pension. We had various freebies given to pensioners - TV licenses, bus passes, fuel allowances.
The consequence of this was seen in election results. In the 2010 GE the bias of the old to vote Tories was at its lowest since 1992.
Expect to see the same again. I'd be gobsmacked if pensioners were not reassured by Labour budgets, and I'd expect votes to change as they did before.
The attraction of buying the votes of pensioners is that it is really simple. The government only has to keep the money flowing. Sorting out the problems for younger voters, such as the housing crisis, might sound simple - just build more houses! - but runs into all sorts of other issues - Who will build them? Will there be enough building materials at a low enough price? Where? - which make them practically more difficult, and even in a best case scenario will take years to deliver tangible results.
* Actually, probably more correctly in the period 2001-2010. I'd have to dig out the details of when the various reforms were made. But the very small pension increase happened in the first Parliament, 1997-2001, and Labour consequently fell further behind with the pensioner vote at the 2001 GE. They learnt their lesson then and I don't think they will be looking for a refresher.
House building needs to be increased.
All of the problem you list are fixable over time.
When it was proposed to hire x,000 more police officers, some said it was actually impossible.
The current block is the hoarding of planning permission. Which is logical for various actors.
Imagine you are a big developer. You have the permission to build an estate of 5,000 homes. If you try and build 5,000 homes now
1) the local house prices will crash 2) the local council will find the strain on infrastructure intolerable 3) the NIMBYs will riot 4) finding the builders may be a problem
So, instead, you build 250 a year. That makes the council mellow. The NIMBYs will get bored with the inevitable. The house prices won’t crash. The building companies and suppliers you contract with will love a steady 20 years of work….
How many years have people been speaking about increasing housebuilding in Britain? Years and years and years and years. It took seven years to increase the number of completions in the UK from the 2012 nadir of 133k to 210k in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
So to take housebuilding up to 300k a year, and sustain it at that level for long enough to bring house prices down, is going to take more than one electoral cycle. To win the next-next election any government is going to need to keep pensioners on side.
House building is easy. Have land. Grant permission. Build.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the Build bit isn't happening. And what they are building is designed to generate the highest profit, not solve the local housing issue.
The solution? Cut the private sector out of the decision-making process. Contract them in to build housing as directed by the council, the housing association, a regional housing board, whatever. But build the houses that people need in the places they need them. And rent them at a price they can afford.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the permission bit isn't happening, and where it is happening its happening in blocs to an oligopoly of developers.
Cut out the oligopoly. No need for any single Council, HA, board or anything else.
Planning permission, if its to be kept, should be guaranteed and easily obtainable within a matter of days not months or years, one house at a time. Not one development at a time.
The permissions bit is happening - faster than the building.
This is a common effect in supply chains. You increase capacity in one thing - no apparent result. Because the next step in the chain is restricted to the old flow rate. Because of historical flows.
The point is not to give up. Just fix the next thing. And look for the next bottleneck.
Permissions bit isn't happening remotely enough, and will by definition always be faster than the building since it can't possibly be the other way around.
Permissions are slow to acquire and go to an oligopoly. That is the bottleneck.
In countries where permission goes a house at a time rather than en-bloc to developments there is no such bottleneck as development simply happens when and where it is needed.
There is a presumption, indeed (I believe) explicit guidance to allow planning permission. If it isn't being granted quickly enough it is because it isn't being applied for quickly enough.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
For me it is the price of the bike (~£1200) split into 12 monthly payments (i.e. ~£100/month) taken off your salary before deductions. So if you are a high rate tax payer then it costs not much more than half the actual cost of the bike spread over 12 months.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
Yes, it is deeply concerning.
The only people they seem to look after (and protect from policy) is the retired and they've dug a hole so deep there I struggle to see how they get out now.
Opposition will do a lot of the work.
Labour, in government, will be unlikely to resist the temptation to try to buy pensioner votes. I think some of the bias of the old to the Tories is in fact a bias of the old to the incumbent government.
Things could change quite rapidly, at least in terms of rhetoric and polling. But would a new Tory government, after a Starmer interregnum, be able to resist the temptation to buy pensioner votes? I have my doubts. (Well, okay, not many doubts, I'm fairly confident that governments of both sides will follow the path of least resistance and genuflect to the pensioner vote.)
OTOH, many pensioners will still vote Tory regardless, so why should SKS bother going all out Tory? Or (as remarked to me yesterday) so cowardly in his approach to Brexit etc. that he might as well be Tory. And ditto with baby starving, Scottish referendum, and so on and so forth.
The Tories have gone so far (as already remarked in the thread) it's probably impossible to rebalance things and make a fairer balance with the people actually doing the work without upsetting the pensioner vote irreparably (for instance, by imposing NI on all, or merging it with income tax, or cutting IHT allowances or converting them to CGT).
My argument is mainly grounded on what happened under the previous Labour government, rather than on hypotheticals about the future.
Under the Labour government of 1997-2010* we saw several moves that increased spending on pensioners. We had the first pension lock, to ensure there wasn't a repeat of low inflation leading to a tiny increase in the state pension. We had various freebies given to pensioners - TV licenses, bus passes, fuel allowances.
The consequence of this was seen in election results. In the 2010 GE the bias of the old to vote Tories was at its lowest since 1992.
Expect to see the same again. I'd be gobsmacked if pensioners were not reassured by Labour budgets, and I'd expect votes to change as they did before.
The attraction of buying the votes of pensioners is that it is really simple. The government only has to keep the money flowing. Sorting out the problems for younger voters, such as the housing crisis, might sound simple - just build more houses! - but runs into all sorts of other issues - Who will build them? Will there be enough building materials at a low enough price? Where? - which make them practically more difficult, and even in a best case scenario will take years to deliver tangible results.
* Actually, probably more correctly in the period 2001-2010. I'd have to dig out the details of when the various reforms were made. But the very small pension increase happened in the first Parliament, 1997-2001, and Labour consequently fell further behind with the pensioner vote at the 2001 GE. They learnt their lesson then and I don't think they will be looking for a refresher.
House building needs to be increased.
All of the problem you list are fixable over time.
When it was proposed to hire x,000 more police officers, some said it was actually impossible.
The current block is the hoarding of planning permission. Which is logical for various actors.
Imagine you are a big developer. You have the permission to build an estate of 5,000 homes. If you try and build 5,000 homes now
1) the local house prices will crash 2) the local council will find the strain on infrastructure intolerable 3) the NIMBYs will riot 4) finding the builders may be a problem
So, instead, you build 250 a year. That makes the council mellow. The NIMBYs will get bored with the inevitable. The house prices won’t crash. The building companies and suppliers you contract with will love a steady 20 years of work….
How many years have people been speaking about increasing housebuilding in Britain? Years and years and years and years. It took seven years to increase the number of completions in the UK from the 2012 nadir of 133k to 210k in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
So to take housebuilding up to 300k a year, and sustain it at that level for long enough to bring house prices down, is going to take more than one electoral cycle. To win the next-next election any government is going to need to keep pensioners on side.
House building is easy. Have land. Grant permission. Build.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the Build bit isn't happening. And what they are building is designed to generate the highest profit, not solve the local housing issue.
The solution? Cut the private sector out of the decision-making process. Contract them in to build housing as directed by the council, the housing association, a regional housing board, whatever. But build the houses that people need in the places they need them. And rent them at a price they can afford.
The reason we aren't building houses is that the permission bit isn't happening, and where it is happening its happening in blocs to an oligopoly of developers.
Cut out the oligopoly. No need for any single Council, HA, board or anything else.
Planning permission, if its to be kept, should be guaranteed and easily obtainable within a matter of days not months or years, one house at a time. Not one development at a time.
The permissions bit is happening - faster than the building.
This is a common effect in supply chains. You increase capacity in one thing - no apparent result. Because the next step in the chain is restricted to the old flow rate. Because of historical flows.
The point is not to give up. Just fix the next thing. And look for the next bottleneck.
Permissions bit isn't happening remotely enough, and will by definition always be faster than the building since it can't possibly be the other way around.
Permissions are slow to acquire and go to an oligopoly. That is the bottleneck.
In countries where permission goes a house at a time rather than en-bloc to developments there is no such bottleneck as development simply happens when and where it is needed.
There is a presumption, indeed (I believe) explicit guidance to allow planning permission. If it isn't being granted quickly enough it is because it isn't being applied for quickly enough.
And why is that? Its because the system discourages firms from applying.
Despite that supposed presumption, 25% of all applications are rejected - and that's despite the fact people are put off from applying in the first place.
If you're a skilled tradesman who could build a house, rather than a major developer who can build thousands, our current system basically says "not interested" to you. The number of planning permissions granted to developments of 1 or 2 homes is miniscule, and the expense and difficulty to get the permission in the first place is why.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
Blame China and India.
The UK has been massively reducing emissions over the past three decades, best in the G7 by a long way. See graph above.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
And if they have lower consumption but still with dirty technology, how does that help the planet?
Lower consumption with dirty technology is worse than higher consumption with clean technology.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Consumption of what? The number of long tons of pig iron? Services?
Quite a few people now only have a tablet instead of a desktop computer. The power consumption of these has fallen massively from the days of dusty space heaters under your desk.
Your flat screen TV takes ever less power - far less than the old cathode ray systems.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
The problem is more that any organisation that exists over a period of time accretes bureaucracy.
Read the "Mitrokhin Archive" - it demythologises the KGB. In 1919 the predecessor organisation(s) were lean and mean and could get things done.
1976 The KGB was x100K people in multiple tower block offices. Where meetings to decide the budget for the proposal for the meeting to discuss a KGB officer in Vienna hiring a local thug to break Rudolf Nureyev's legs... faded into nothing.
In the private sector, eventually, such organisation are reformed or swept away. In the aftermath of 2008, CITI Bank fired whole floors of people - we joked (contractors) that the tower in Canary Wharf was getting shorter.
The other problem in the public sector (apart from permanency) is isolation from modern best practise. So we have industrial relations from the 1950s. Lots of people is shit jobs (no automation) doing mind numbing reparative tasks. etc etc
My experience of the private sector does not suggest that it does much better at avoiding these problems. The modern public sector sees plenty of job losses: there’s currently an exercise to cut about 40% of jobs in NHS England after a re-organisation.
What I see, rather, is that needless public sector reform constantly loses organisational memory, leading to endless re-invention of the wheel and inefficiencies.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Instead of compulsory maths until age 18, I would be in favour of a compulsory life skills course, which would include cookery, home management, personal healthcare, budgeting, arithmetic, how and why to vote, and basic DIY.
Our area is full of chicken shops but our kids' school doesn't teach home economics because they don't have the resources and they're so focused on OFSTED and exams. It's very short-sighted as I imagine each additional diabetes patient costs the NHS about the cost of a home ec classroom.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Obesity is not the cause of healthcare spending going up, though it absolutely doesn't help.
The simple thing is that increasing spending on healthcare is like running faster on a treadmill. No matter how much you do it, you're still at the same point and need to keep doing so just to stand still.
As people age they get more chronic conditions. The more you treat chronic conditions, the more they develop, the more they need to be treated.
Walking to work or cycling to work is neither here nor there, since very little of healthcare expenditure goes on people of working age - especially excluding pregnancy-related healthcare.
This is something I know quite a bit about.
1) Obesity is widely recognised a contributory factor for the increased prevalence of a number of costly diseases. It has other costs too, particularly on productivity. 2) Technological innovation is a good thing and improves outcomes. Unlike in other parts of the economy, such advances are cost escalating. 3) The increase in chronic conditions is not explained solely by demographic change
1. Obesity absolutely is a factor in things like diabetes, but age and age-related chronic conditions are still what the NHS expenditure goes on though. Diabetics die younger too, which may end up saving the NHS money (a bit like the irony about smokers - yes smokers got cancer which cost money, but smokers were very good for the Exchequer as the taxes and premature death meant that the Exchequer was much better off net from smoking).
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
The debate is around what is going on in the orange bit.
That depends upon your assumptions of what goes into demographics and what does not.
Chronic conditions are lumped under "other costs" but demographics is the key determination of chronic conditions, so is that other, or is it demographics? Or both?
The better you get at keeping alive people with chronic conditions, the more you need to treat those conditions and the more chronic conditions they will acquire.
It's quite simple to strip out the effect of demographic change if you know the prevalence of conditions by single year of age and gender in a baseline year. You just push your population data through that profile and you end up with a residual - the "other", unexplained growth.
All else held equal, NHS spending would've only grown marginally.
Except for the fact that we've become better at both diagnosing and treating chronic conditions.
And the better we do at it, the more people stay alive, longer, with more chronic conditions.
Someone in their seventies today will have more healthcare visits than someone in their seventies twenty years ago. That is because we've become better at both diagnosis and treatment. Your chart puts that down to "other" instead of "demographics", but the two are inextricably linked.
I think that is quite correctly sat in "other". Increased rates of diagnosis and treatment is not because our demographic profile has changed. (It's not my chart - it's the OECD/OBR, so direct your ire at them).
What "other" is is up for debate. I agree with you, I think - trying to extricate the precise contributions of technological advance and the increase in chronic conditions is very difficult, with causality running in both directions. For example, has obesity increased because people are aware that the NHS can treat things like heart disease and diabetes? It's been normalised somewhat?
Nevertheless, I want to see our money and efforts to go into countering things like dementia rather than preventable things like obesity.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
For me it is the price of the bike (~£1200) split into 12 monthly payments (i.e. ~£100/month) taken off your salary before deductions. So if you are a high rate tax payer then it costs not much more than half the actual cost of the bike spread over 12 months.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
For me it is the price of the bike (~£1200) split into 12 monthly payments (i.e. ~£100/month) taken off your salary before deductions. So if you are a high rate tax payer then it costs not much more than half the actual cost of the bike spread over 12 months.
Thanks - a friend looked at it and deemed it not worth it but I've no idea what tax bracket they were in. Presumably the higher the tax bracket the more the saving. Are there any pitfalls to it?
It's worth reminding readers that Lee Anderthal is not just a gobby MP, he is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. So when he tells 'moaning' asylum seekers to "fuck off back to France" his role as DC is relevant. No surprise that he said it and is standing by it. But his language has not been condemned by anybody in the party, including No. 10; rather, they all seem to have endorsed his comments.
It rather suggests to me that the Tory Party has given up, if they can't be bothered appealing to the vast majority of voters who have common decency.
If you know nothing about the country you are governing you make Lee Anderson one of your public faces. Lee is every out-of-touch metropolitan elitist's idea of what a salt of the earth, working class, northerner is like. That he is not even a northerner is only the start of the delusion.
Lee Anderson was a lifelong member of the Labour Party until 2018.
He might not represent all the working class, but he represents a strand of it that believes Labour abandoned them.
If they are lost again it's more likely to be because they think the Tories haven't delivered, than because they share Labour values.
One of my linguistic bugbears is misuse of the word "lifelong". Anderson was a member of the Labour Party until 2018. The fact he no longer is means, by definition, he was not a lifelong member of the Labour Party.
I'm reminded of my parents getting into a conversation with an elderly local gentleman in a Devon village (I forget which - let's say Newton Poppleford as I like the name). "Have you lived in Newton Poppleford all your life?" they asked. He thought for a moment and sagely replied, "Not yet."
Lifelong qualified with until seems correct and reasonable usage to me. (Although probably wasnt a Labour Member as a child anyway....)
I know it is often used in that way, but the definition of "lifelong" is lasting throughout a person's life. Alternative words like "longstanding" exist for a state that has existed for much of a person's life. So the only thing that ends a lifelong association is death, not a change of heart.
That said, if someone says to me on the doorstep, "I'm a lifelong Conservative but enough is enough and I won't vote for those bastards again..." I rarely say, "Let me stop you there as I think you've misused the word 'lifelong'."
But I do think it.
What is the definition of until......
The meaning of the combination of lifelong and until is fairly clear and unambiguous to me at least.
My objection isn't over ambiguity in the particular sentence, but making the word "lifelong" unclear in future use. So if the word is routinely used with the "until" qualifier, it becomes unclear as to whether someone described as a lifelong *whatever* even without the qualifier has indeed been in that state all their life or merely for a significant period.
I'd also query "lifelong Labour member" at the other end as few people are Labour members at birth. Maybe Anderson was at least a Labour member from a very young age, although even that is unclear - he'd have needed to be a member under Foot as he's not a particularly young man now, which is possible but perhaps a tad unlikely.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
The problem is more that any organisation that exists over a period of time accretes bureaucracy.
Read the "Mitrokhin Archive" - it demythologises the KGB. In 1919 the predecessor organisation(s) were lean and mean and could get things done.
1976 The KGB was x100K people in multiple tower block offices. Where meetings to decide the budget for the proposal for the meeting to discuss a KGB officer in Vienna hiring a local thug to break Rudolf Nureyev's legs... faded into nothing.
In the private sector, eventually, such organisation are reformed or swept away. In the aftermath of 2008, CITI Bank fired whole floors of people - we joked (contractors) that the tower in Canary Wharf was getting shorter.
The other problem in the public sector (apart from permanency) is isolation from modern best practise. So we have industrial relations from the 1950s. Lots of people is shit jobs (no automation) doing mind numbing reparative tasks. etc etc
My experience of the private sector does not suggest that it does much better at avoiding these problems. The modern public sector sees plenty of job losses: there’s currently an exercise to cut about 40% of jobs in NHS England after a re-organisation.
What I see, rather, is that needless public sector reform constantly loses organisational memory, leading to endless re-invention of the wheel and inefficiencies.
The main feature in the private sector is the possibility of failure (which is why Too Big To Fail is so toxic) and the ability of management to actually cut dead wood areas (though they often miss and hit the productive parts).
The attempt to cut 40% of jobs in NHS England will result in a staff increase, unless it is an actual investment in technology and productivity. But it won't be, will it?
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
For me it is the price of the bike (~£1200) split into 12 monthly payments (i.e. ~£100/month) taken off your salary before deductions. So if you are a high rate tax payer then it costs not much more than half the actual cost of the bike spread over 12 months.
Thanks - a friend looked at it and deemed it not worth it but I've no idea what tax bracket they were in. Presumably the higher the tax bracket the more the saving. Are there any pitfalls to it?
It is nearly always worth it - you are buying a bike with pre tax income.
So unless the retailer is taking the piss (higher price, then reduced - see duty free), it is always cheaper.
The other thing to check is what happens if you leave your employer before the payments are done.
On the assumption that all the science is correct it seems to me that a technical solution through decarbonisation and adaptation is the most feasible answer to the problem of global warming. It is quite obvious that it is not going to be realistic to stop consumption in developing counties, if you stake all your hopes on this, accepting the massive economic hit that would be involved, then you are going to end up disappointed and you will not innovate (which is necessary to solve the problem) at the same rate.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
That to me is what feels more like a religious belief "a new technology will save us" where we have no actual reason to believe it will, when instead we have had the means to make the necessary changes in the last 30 years and it was decided not to. If environmentalists making demands for revolution sound like religious zealots, it's partly because the last 30 years have been such monumental failures:
The point is that there have been massive positive technological changes in the past three decades.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
That technological change has not reduced the likelihood of climate catastrophe and has increased it. In the last 30 years we've had the incentive, we've had the knowledge and we've had the technology to massively change economies - the issue has been that the "market" (see those invested in oil) have incentives for short term profit over long term sustainability. We do not currently have viable carbon capture tech, and to assume that we will have it in time to save us sounds more akin to a faith based position than the materialist approach of just reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and reducing our consumption. I don't advocate going back to the stone age - we could have a globally average standard of living that is very good that is also not highly destructive to the environment. What you can't have is that and growth growth growth at the same time.
So in your alternative vision, 8 billion people would collectively have a higher standard of living but with lower aggregate consumption? How does that add up?
Redistribution of resources. The analogy of growth is always "you might get a smaller slice, but of a bigger pie, so you'll be richer". I'm saying we need to shrink the pie, but give more people bigger slices. That means some people will get smaller slices, yes, but most of those people already have massive slices and they'll be relatively worse off compared to their life previously, but still very well off compared to the standard of living across the whole of human history. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates are not people who deserve millions times more resources at their disposal than any other human being.
Otoh, there is actually a nascent campaign againt cycle2work, because it's regressive (it is!). But honestly, talk about idealogy over outcomes. Deeply frustrating.
I dislike c2w because as you say it's regressive -- middle class higher rate tax payers like me effectively get expensive bikes nearly half price because we have secure employment at companies who care enough about retention to offer the benefit. It smacks of an "ooh, we can do a quick faff with the tax system" wheeze rather than a thought out policy on how best to encourage cycling. But I don't want it scrapped, I'd like to see it replaced with something better. My suggestion is make cycles and cycle accessories zero rated for VAT.
Having just received my new bike via C2W I now agree with scrapping the system.
Don't you pay for it through the nose via interest payments?
For me it is the price of the bike (~£1200) split into 12 monthly payments (i.e. ~£100/month) taken off your salary before deductions. So if you are a high rate tax payer then it costs not much more than half the actual cost of the bike spread over 12 months.
On the phone with Bank of Scotland business and we're staging a revival of the Monty Python Gas Cooker sketch.
Applying for a business account. They're querying that the address entered disagrees with the address they have on file for our mortgage. Yes, because the bank got that bit wrong (missing letter). Now need to produce bills etc as proof of address for a property they own...
@Nigelb - to be fair, at least you acknowledge that Sinn Fein MPs would be liable to be held to the same standard. Perhaps a few more by-elections would be fun for us betting wise, but I'd be interested to hear Chris Bryant's view on this issue.
I honestly think it a sensible measure.
Because it requires both a vote of the entire House - and if there are to be consequences for the MP beyond a couple of weeks suspension (which if they're not attending is hardly draconian anyway) - a successful recall petition and majority vote of the MP's constituents, I really fail to see how this could be used, even by a malign majority in the Commons, to persecute an individual MP.
It seems entirely proportionate to the problem.
Yep this is the Sinn Fein safeguard. Motions to chuck out their MPs simply will not pass the house, they'll get the DUP voting in favour and that'll be about it.
Even if the House voted to suspend them for two weeks, it would be meaningless - particularly as they're neither attending or drawing a salary anyway. Their constituents would prevent any recall by election.
A recall petition needs 10% of the electorate to sign it. Consider a seat like Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which SF won with 43.3% of the vote over the UUP candidate with 43.2% of the vote. The UUP should be able to rustle up enough signatures.
There have been 4 recall petitions. 3 succeeded and the 4th came very close. That very close one was in North Antrim against Ian Paisley Jr., who had won 58.9% at the prior election. There’s only 1 Sinn Fein MP who got more than 50% of the vote in their constituency (Belfast West, 53.8%).
Re Sir Chris Bryant's sporty little gambit to ban non-attending parliamentarians, where does this leave Sinn Fein MPs?
One might argue "but that's different", but I think this is why we should steer well away from this sort of thing. The moment you create exceptions, it becomes very messy.
Where's the problem ? Suspend them for a sufficient period for a recall, and see if their constituents care enough to vote for one. We already know the answer.
It clearly demonstrates the measure isn't targeted at any individual, but rather provides a mechanism for the electorate to do something about an absentee MP, should they so wish.
I don't think even that would be necessary under Bryant's gambit.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
The Conservative Party in the past often took very strong positions against Sinn Fein. If there’s a majority of Conservative MPs in the House, then I can see the House voting against them in this sort of situation. OK, time has moved on and Sinn Fein today is not in the same situation as in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but the Tories are happy to embrace some quite extreme positions for tabloid headlines. It’s not hard to imagine them railing against “lazy” Sinn Fein MPs if they think it will distract the electorate from their general failure to make the country better.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
The bit in bold: it goes on debt repayments.
We have a shit-ton of debt. We need to reflate the economy to lessen the debt burden over time via inflation. But the anti-inflationary reflexes we built up in the neoliberal era prevent us from doing this. So we have problems.
That isn't true with public services. We spend ever larger amounts on schools and hospitals despite front line service provision being catastrophically starved of money.
A basic problem is that everything has been marketised. Instead of driving market-led efficiency we have endless overlapping targets and contracts and regulations. The market is a vast business by itself.
How much money did we waste creating Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS? Then replacing them with Integrated Care Boards? How integrated are the dozens of "integrated" boards and how many contracts do they negotiate and manage and how much is spent on administration?
Thats our problem. A fat layer of middlemen who suck the cash out of the system.
This government *is* fiscally dry, however they’ve had to increase the number of civil servants due to Brexit and they continue to stuff gold down the throat of the client vote.
I think we're starting to identify the issues on this thread.
i) Frictional, beaurocratic & administrative cost increases due to putting up trade barriers between ourselves and our nearest neighbours. ii) A culture of gold plating & empire building prevalent in the civil service - driven (certainly in part) by unintended consequences of pseudo-marketisation & i) iii) Increasing debt costs.
Altogether it means we're collectively paying more than ever for less.
iv) demographics and an ageing population meaning costs for pensions/NHS are ever increasing
Weirdly, demographics isn't the primary driver of health costs in the NHS (it doesn't help). There is something else going on - technology, chronic conditions, Baumol's cost disease perhaps.
I do think 'something must be done' about obesity.
I don't think the answer is nannying. But 2/3rds of the population being fat is ridiculous and with Deliveroo etc. serving up pizzas and burgers all the time (I get several leaflets through the door weekly) it's only going to get worse. Smartphone idleness on top doesn't help.
We need to eat less fat, salt, sugar, MSG and more real food. I'd like less hectoring and more home economics, diet guidelines, nudges and tasty/easy recipes (incl. ready meal options) that allow people to do this.
Instead of compulsory maths until age 18, I would be in favour of a compulsory life skills course, which would include cookery, home management, personal healthcare, budgeting, arithmetic, how and why to vote, and basic DIY.
Wasn’t it Thatcher who got rid of cookery classes in schools?
Re Sir Chris Bryant's sporty little gambit to ban non-attending parliamentarians, where does this leave Sinn Fein MPs?
One might argue "but that's different", but I think this is why we should steer well away from this sort of thing. The moment you create exceptions, it becomes very messy.
Where's the problem ? Suspend them for a sufficient period for a recall, and see if their constituents care enough to vote for one. We already know the answer.
It clearly demonstrates the measure isn't targeted at any individual, but rather provides a mechanism for the electorate to do something about an absentee MP, should they so wish.
I don't think even that would be necessary under Bryant's gambit.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
Absolutely - but I was considering a worst case scenario where the proposed procedure was weaponised to target an MP for party political reasons. Any such effort, without very good justification, would do far more damage to the party trying it on.
Yes. It's notable that the only failed recall petition was in Northern Ireland (for Ian Paisley Jnr of the DUP rather than Sinn Fein). I'm doubtful a recall petition would pass if it came to that, and there is no reason to think a Sinn Fein candidate would lose a subsequent by-election even if enough unionists mobilised to make it happen ("Yes, we voted for an abstentionist MP - what part of that don't you understand?")
It failed by a mere 444 signatures (0.6% of the electorate) and that was in one of the safest seats in NI, with the best possible name recognition. I don’t think the lesson from that is that recall petitions can’t pass in NI. I think the lesson is that most would pass.
I don't think much thinking was ever really done in opposition other than to ape Blair and steal his crown. The bulk of the grassroots wanted the EU question resolved and their patience had run out by the time of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.
How the political landscape had shifted under their feet totally took Osborne/Cameron by surprise. Subsequent leaders then boxed themselves into a demographic corner by digging deeper and deeper into the retired vote, and today, there ain't much left in the tank.
The Conservatives needs a fundamental rethink on making Britain strong, fit, lean, well-balanced and prosperous for the 21stC. How to create the business owners, home owners and thriving families of the future. How to appeal to all age groups and all parts of the UK. A refocus on core values, and a root and branch review on policy is required that needs to be both comprehensive and sincere (far too many are still obsessed by the EU, on both sides, and want to re-fight old wars) and focused on realism and pragmatism that puts the national interest first.
Will they achieve it?
I'm not sure. But they need to try.
I find the fatalistic desire for opposition to be daft. There's nothing particularly noble about throwing in the towel - apart from anything else, it's not how democracy should function.
Hard to find anything to argue with in OGH's summary. At least for yours truly!
Morning all.
@MikeSmithson keeps taking GE2019 as the benchmark. Whilst this looks right on paper, it's an illusion and for punters it's an error. GE2019 was a one-off 'Get Brexit Done' election to unblock the jam created during the Remainer Parliament. Boris Johnson galvanised the voters against the unelectable trotskyite anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn with the sole aim of Getting Brexit Done. Hence the December election. In many ways GE2019 was NOT a General Election.
The last proper General Election in the UK was June 2017, which resulted in a hung parliament. That's your benchmark.
Bet accordingly.
p.s. I'm personally very glad that Keir Starmer is no Tony Blair.
I think I understand the point you are making - whilst the 2019 election is the status quo, its artificial. Ordinarily the Labour task would be considered politically unlikely - as we all said in the aftermath.
But if we consider the 2019 result to be the aberration, then a revision to the norm can be expected to happen as the start of any new electoral move. There are swathes of red wall seats which endless polls have shows will not just revert to Labour but will deliver them 5 figure majorities.
If we bake that 2017 reversion in, the task facing Starmer is much smaller, and much more attainable. Then we look at the two other political low tides from 2015 likely to come back in:
The absence of unionist MPs in Scotland feels like a situation that can't be sustained - so expect 20-30 seats to switch from the motorhome party. The absence of yellow MPs in rural England is already a tide rushing back in. The focus is always on Labour, but as is clear it is the LibDems who will mop up disaffected sane voters in places where "Sink the Boats" makes people feel sick.
So, we reset the Red Wall. We drain out the SNP flood. We remove the dam from the LibDems. And suddenly a thumping Tory defeat is not just possible, it feels likely. To stay in power they need to preserve all three of these artificial positions. Which politically means they need to be Janus, a task they are spectacularly failing to pull off.
Yes, I think the Tories have snookered themselves. It is hard to see any of those 3 fronts being contained next GE. While Scotland is unique, the other 2 fronts play out across most E and W constituencies. They are sociological rather than geographical waves.
Tory unpopularity with the working age population is astonishing. I doubt there’s been anything like it in the history of two-party politics in this country.
What possible reason is there at the minute for someone who works for a living to support the Tories?
Sunak has made his bed and shown that working people only exist in his eyes to be taxed ever higher to provide welfare for those who don't work. That's something you can understand from Labour, but from the Tories?
The jack boots will be on next and barbed wire being put up to intern unemployed and pensioners. Give it a rest Adolf.
Hang on. Barty is an absolutist which often translates into absurdist straw man positions - the rant about 30mph zones a perfect example. But he has a point - the status quo is broken. We *are* paying vast amounts in taxes. Where he descends into the absurdist is the suggestion that the money is going into welfare. When our welfare system grudgingly gives people living poverty assuming it pays anything at all.
We're paying record taxes, true. But its going to spivs, not on services, not on infrastructure, not on welfare. We pay lots and get little. Where does all that money go? Even if you are as high Tory and say "inefficiency" that is literally my point. Inefficiency means money is being wasted. Spent on consultants. Advisers. Middlemen. Spivs...
The problem we have is that whilst "we pay taxes and get little back" is good analysis, nobody wants to go after why that is. And propose a solution because the problem is too big and our politicians too timid.
Your jackboots analogy is one solution. Hungary have done it. France wants to do it. Spain and Germany are toying with it...
Interestingly the idea that all our taxes are going on "spivs" is a bit like Tory extremists who think all our taxes are going on "diversity officers" etc
I never said all our money is going on welfare. What I said, is that we now spend more on welfare than we spend on all public sector employees put together.
That's right, we spend more on welfare than we spend on every doctor, nurse, police officer, prison officer, teacher and more combined. Including any spivs the state hires.
And those on welfare are getting a double-digit pay rise, while those who work for a living for the state are not.
That is where our money is going. Well some of it.
Between welfare, people working for the state and debt interest out of every £5 the state spends of our taxes approximately £2 goes on welfare, £2 goes on people working for a living (slightly less than the welfare amount, but we're rounding here), and £1 goes on debt interest.
So only 40% of that expenditure is 'productive', even if you generously assume all public sector employees are productive.
You can eliminate every spiv, or every diversity officer, or whatever other prejudice you have. But when between those three issues we spend 60% of our taxes on welfare and debt interest then we have a problem.
Especially when the government is increasing annually the amount we spend on welfare and debt interest, and reducing annually the amount we spend on wages.
PS who said anything about "people living in poverty". Very little of our welfare system goes to people living in poverty. Welfare != support for poverty, that is the problem.
Oh Dear , you don't even realise that benefits & pensions are spent in the economy as opposed to the billions the spivs take and send to tax havens etc. Explain why the £2 on workers is productive and yet the £2 on pensions/benefits is not, give us another laugh. You really don't have a clue.
Actually giving wealthy people living offshore double digit increases to their pensions doesn't get spent in the economy, whereas giving people who are working for a living in this country a pay rise does.
The problem is that people assume that 'welfare' goes to those who need it, so is a good thing. If it did, there'd be a lot less poverty in this country, considering that is where our money is going yet those who are in poverty get sod all - then the question to ask is where is the rest of the welfare budget going?
If you don't understand why people working for a living might be more productive than those who aren't, then I'm not sure I can help you understand it better. Others smarter than you do though.
Well let me just answer a few of your mistaken points I answered your point re the equal spending of £2 by a "worker" or your interpretation of a "sponger". Someone unemployed or retired spending £2 is the same benefit to the economy as someone working spending £2. Your dumb theory only works if those working are spending more than £2 and so is a false argument. How many people abroad get pensions , guaranteed it is a small fraction of overall pensions and ZERO on benefits, another one shot down and eth amount sent to tax havens by Tory spivs, tax evaders etc dwarves it by many many times.
You're divorced from facts and reality again.
Those working for expenditure is not the same benefit to the economy as those not working for a higher share of expenditure since its not just the amount of they spend that the economy benefits from, but more importantly the amount of work achieved that the economy benefits from too. Which unsurprisingly is more for those working, than not working.
Giving taxpayers money to those who are well off, have a property portfolio and are making a decent and untaxed income not from working but from letting out their properties and calling that "welfare" while those who are working poor get less and less wages does nothing for either alleviating poverty or boosting productivity.
People think that because those in poverty get so little from welfare, that we can't be spending too much on welfare. Well the truth is worse than that, we spend a fortune on welfare, more than we do on all workers combined, yet very little of it goes to those who need it.
What bit of your two sets of people spending £2 has a different impact. You then start wittering on about government spending which bears no relation to the £2. Once again you start with 2+2 then get 5 and swear it proves your 2+2, mental.
Comments
On the access re: fly tipping - a bizarre feature of the system that was specified was that there was no segregation of data. . The complete data for an individual was accessible by any user of the system.
Yes, this is batshit insane.
But was how the system was specified. Because no department would say no, we don't want data. So the aggregate of the requirements awas that everyone got to see everything.
Perhaps this position is actually a form of faith in technical progress, but there is evidence of success to justify it, ie with the improving efficiency of solar panels, the emergence of electric cars, etc. To the contrary I've seen little evidence that developing countries will slow down their growth in consumption. It seems to me that the environmental activists and their fellow travellers are right to point out the problem but by catastrophising and preaching that consumption is a sin they are actually getting in the way of the optimum solution.
2. Yes this is the big thing. I completely agree here, hence my treadmill metaphor.
3. [Citation Needed] Part of the increase in chronic conditions is we are becoming better at identifying and diagnosing them, plus greater awareness. But still, demographics is the overwhelming factor.
There is no amount of money that will ever be 'enough' for the NHS, since whatever amount it is given will improve healthcare [a good thing] which will then mean people are alive for longer, with more chronic conditions, so there will be even more demand then on the NHS and now the money won't be enough again.
This is a common effect in supply chains. You increase capacity in one thing - no apparent result. Because the next step in the chain is restricted to the old flow rate. Because of historical flows.
The point is not to give up. Just fix the next thing. And look for the next bottleneck.
Because it requires both a vote of the entire House - and if there are to be consequences for the MP beyond a couple of weeks suspension (which if they're not attending is hardly draconian anyway) - a successful recall petition and majority vote of the MP's constituents, I really fail to see how this could be used, even by a malign majority in the Commons, to persecute an individual MP.
It seems entirely proportionate to the problem.
The debate is around what is going on in the orange bit.
Permissions are slow to acquire and go to an oligopoly. That is the bottleneck.
In countries where permission goes a house at a time rather than en-bloc to developments there is no such bottleneck as development simply happens when and where it is needed.
Droens will probably become part of that.
Drone warfare in Ukraine is already shifting significantly US defence acquisition policy:
https://defensescoop.com/2023/08/07/army-may-procure-multiple-variants-of-lasso-kamikaze-drones-to-boost-production-capacity-acquisition-chief-says/
Carson was a Steinerite puppet. You can read about that here:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rachel-carson-and-rudolf_b_3639684
PS Of course capitalism is polluting the effing world for the profits of a tiny minority. Of course it involves huge waste at every level. Also the exploitation of animals is an obscenity and I would like to see meat banned. These are no arguments for Greenism which is far right and Malthusian.
As far as government goes, don’t be picking winners* but set out a framework for innovation and commercialisation of inventions.
As an example I follow, Formula 1 is a hotbed of innovation, and their technology in both engines and electric powertrains is transferring over to road cars. Car engines have never been more fuel efficient, and Mercedes now has an electric prototype car with a 1000km range from a 100kW battery.
*but for God’s sake, put in the order for the first half dozen Rolls Royce SMR reactors.
As I understand it, his proposal is that a motion is tabled to require a particular MP to attend Parliament on a particular day. If the motion is passed by a vote of MPs and she does not attend as required, she would be in contempt of Parliament with a risk of suspension for 10+ days, triggering a recall petition.
A motion to require a Sinn Fein MP to attend on a particular day would be unlikely to pass. The reason for voting against it as an MP would be pretty straightforward - Sinn Fein MPs are elected on an explicitly abstentionist platform, so voters in their constituency (even if you disagree with them) have not been misled in any way, and requiring someone elected on a clear promise NOT to attend to break that promise is both inappropriate and incendiary.
Their constituents would prevent any recall by election.
Chronic conditions are lumped under "other costs" but demographics is the key determination of chronic conditions, so is that other, or is it demographics? Or both?
The better you get at keeping alive people with chronic conditions, the more you need to treat those conditions and the more chronic conditions they will acquire.
Any such effort, without very good justification, would do far more damage to the party trying it on.
https://thecorrespondent.com/751/weve-emitted-more-co2-in-the-past-30-years-than-in-all-of-history-these-three-reasons-are-to-blame
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1171658/E02929310_HMT_PESA_2023_Accessible.pdf
Since 2000 spending as a % of GDP has risen by about 10.5pp to about 45.5%.
Biggest drivers are health (+3.5pp), debt interest (+2), and enterprise and economic development (+2). Then you have transport and social protection (+1 each) with "accounting adjustments" accounting for the remaining +1. Things like general bureaucracy, defence, public order, science, environmental protection and education are all small moves and zero overall.
So "welfare" (social protection) is small and probably pensions. Health is probably ageing related too. Debt interest comes from paying for Covid plus inflation and interest rate increases. "Enterprise and economic development" is an interesting one. Whatever it is, spending on it has risen 5x, mostly post Covid. Could be residual Covid support scheme spending but I thought that was done by FY22/23. Transport is maybe HS2 and other projects, and higher post Covid rail subsidies?
Anyway, key things are ageing and debt interest. Plus the big problem isn't the numerator of spending as % of GDP but the denominator - a weaker economy means we can't spend more on government without spending less elsewhere. That's down to ageing too, plus Covid and Ukraine, the aftermath of the GFC, with a side order of Brexit.
The religious are those who say that little or nothing has been done.
All else held equal, NHS spending would've only grown marginally.
Hell, 20 years ago, the same.
The problem, for some Greens, is that the replacement cars are not hair shirt cars.
That said, if someone says to me on the doorstep, "I'm a lifelong Conservative but enough is enough and I won't vote for those bastards again..." I rarely say, "Let me stop you there as I think you've misused the word 'lifelong'."
But I do think it.
There is every reason to believe technological change will help, it already is. And there has been a dramatic success in the past 30 years for technology, in the past 300 years, and there is no reason to think such success won't continue in the future.
Besides - what is the alternative?
Curl into a ball and die?
Go back to the stone age?
The only viable solution to get us to net zero, is zero emission clean technology. So get on board, or get out of the way.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hFrKzH2UZ1c
They drove it 1,200km from Germany to Silverstone for an exhibition (with a pro driver being careful to maximise range).
"Each turn of its 107m long blades will produce enough clean energy to power an average UK home for 2 days."
And the better we do at it, the more people stay alive, longer, with more chronic conditions.
Someone in their seventies today will have more healthcare visits than someone in their seventies twenty years ago. That is because we've become better at both diagnosis and treatment. Your chart puts that down to "other" instead of "demographics", but the two are inextricably linked.
The meaning of the combination of lifelong and until is fairly clear and unambiguous to me at least.
Despite that supposed presumption, 25% of all applications are rejected - and that's despite the fact people are put off from applying in the first place.
If you're a skilled tradesman who could build a house, rather than a major developer who can build thousands, our current system basically says "not interested" to you. The number of planning permissions granted to developments of 1 or 2 homes is miniscule, and the expense and difficulty to get the permission in the first place is why.
The UK has been massively reducing emissions over the past three decades, best in the G7 by a long way. See graph above.
Lower consumption with dirty technology is worse than higher consumption with clean technology.
Quite a few people now only have a tablet instead of a desktop computer. The power consumption of these has fallen massively from the days of dusty space heaters under your desk.
Your flat screen TV takes ever less power - far less than the old cathode ray systems.
etc etc.
NEW THREAD.
What I see, rather, is that needless public sector reform constantly loses organisational memory, leading to endless re-invention of the wheel and inefficiencies.
What "other" is is up for debate. I agree with you, I think - trying to extricate the precise contributions of technological advance and the increase in chronic conditions is very difficult, with causality running in both directions. For example, has obesity increased because people are aware that the NHS can treat things like heart disease and diabetes? It's been normalised somewhat?
Nevertheless, I want to see our money and efforts to go into countering things like dementia rather than preventable things like obesity.
Big state at its worst.
I'd also query "lifelong Labour member" at the other end as few people are Labour members at birth. Maybe Anderson was at least a Labour member from a very young age, although even that is unclear - he'd have needed to be a member under Foot as he's not a particularly young man now, which is possible but perhaps a tad unlikely.
The attempt to cut 40% of jobs in NHS England will result in a staff increase, unless it is an actual investment in technology and productivity. But it won't be, will it?
So unless the retailer is taking the piss (higher price, then reduced - see duty free), it is always cheaper.
The other thing to check is what happens if you leave your employer before the payments are done.
Applying for a business account. They're querying that the address entered disagrees with the address they have on file for our mortgage. Yes, because the bank got that bit wrong (missing letter). Now need to produce bills etc as proof of address for a property they own...
There have been 4 recall petitions. 3 succeeded and the 4th came very close. That very close one was in North Antrim against Ian Paisley Jr., who had won 58.9% at the prior election. There’s only 1 Sinn Fein MP who got more than 50% of the vote in their constituency (Belfast West, 53.8%).