Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
You have to be 110% pro Ukraine to be absolutely certain of not being called a Russian stooge.
I will be a Russian stooge then. I'm not giving up my sincerely held belief that this war will go on a for an awfully long time, in which a lot of people will die and it may never result in any progress or change. That is not being pro-Russia just being realistic.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
London is building towers of flats all over the place. Or are you taking about the green bits inside the M25?
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
You have to be 110% pro Ukraine to be absolutely certain of not being called a Russian stooge.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Do you think Ukraine should be liberated and secure in their own borders within their entirety?
If no, then you're pro-Russia.
Yes but it doesn't mean that will practically happen. Just because I acknowledge that it doesn't make me pro Russia.
It DOES make you pro-Russia, you just can't see it!
I'd like the Royal Family to ultimately not exist but I accept that probably isn't going to happen exactly as I think it will. That doesn't make me a devout royalist.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
Do you think Ukraine should be liberated and secure in their own borders within their entirety?
If no, then you're pro-Russia.
Yes but it doesn't mean that will practically happen. Just because I acknowledge that it doesn't make me pro Russia.
This is exactly what I was referring to earlier when I said this site operates a bit like a hive-mind at times.
Things don't "just happen" we get a say in helping them happen.
Do you think we should support Ukraine, for as long as they're willing to fight, to help them liberate their own lands and provide whatever weaponry and ammunition we can to help them to win their fight?
If so, you're pro-Ukraine. Even if you think it'll be difficult.
If no, if you think we should tell Ukrainians to give up their own land to Russia, then you're pro-Russia.
There's a difference between saying "this is difficult, we should do it anyway" and "this is difficult, lets not bother".
Do you think Ukraine should be liberated and secure in their own borders within their entirety?
If no, then you're pro-Russia.
Yes but it doesn't mean that will practically happen. Just because I acknowledge that it doesn't make me pro Russia.
This is exactly what I was referring to earlier when I said this site operates a bit like a hive-mind at times.
Things don't "just happen" we get a say in helping them happen.
Do you think we should support Ukraine, for as long as they're willing to fight, to help them liberate their own lands and provide whatever weaponry and ammunition we can to help them to win their fight?
If so, you're pro-Ukraine. Even if you think it'll be difficult.
If no, if you think we should tell Ukrainians to give up their own land to Russia, then you're pro-Russia.
There's a difference between saying "this is difficult, we should do it anyway" and "this is difficult, lets not bother".
You don't get to set the standard on how anti or pro Ukraine I am. I know what I am and that is pro-Ukraine but also practically minded.
We should send in support tomorrow from the RAF and the USA to bomb Russia into oblivion and we should send our own troops into Ukraine to fight. Why are you so less pro-Ukraine than me???
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
The "London rates, provincial costs" windfall won't last forever, sure. But businesses will drive hybrid and home anyway, because it is in the interests of every business that isn't a commercial landlord or a newspaper publisher.
Imagine flipping it the other way. Instead of being able to do some jobs some/all the time at home, everyone has to get into some sort of metal box costing time and money to go and work in an office that employers have to pay for. Because sometimes it's helpful to have co-workers randomly around, because it makes a certain sort of manager feel useful and because we have to be fair to people whose jobs have to be done on-site. I suspect the response would be similar to the Smash Martians watching humans.
I mean, do we want the country to be productive or not?
(Whether press barons and party funders are acting in the national interest, and what we should do with that information, is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
To what do you attribute your lower productivity?
Is it PB?
I have become more productive over that time as I have moved on and continued training on newer technologies (software engineer) it just wasn't reflected in pay. In 2018 I earned the same as I did in 2002 despite mastering a lot more tech which made me more productive. All jobs however continued to have the same pay scale but asked for more knowledge so had to keep up. Then we brexited and ended fom suddenly jobs started offering more....go figure. Before 2019 lots of eastern european programmers.....now not so much
I'm always slightly sceptical of simple cause and effect stuff like this. If true, it means that British tech companies have to have been earning super-normal margins in the 2012-2019 period, and these would now be coming down.
One would also expect that programmers salaries in Europe would have declined in the post-2019 period, just as our rose.
Neither of those things have happened. The 2010s were not a period of particular profitability for IT companies in the UK (either relative to history or relative to European peers). Likewise, tech wages are rising across the continent currently.
My gut is that most things that affect wages are external: right now, the rise of ChatGPT in the developer space means that average developers are being "supercharged". I suspect that means more competition and lower wages.
And the rise of remote work means that development teams are increasingly distributed. That is not going to be good for wages of people in high cost locations.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
It's not my fault that the government has spent all my 30 years of pensions contributions, currently over £1000 a month, rather than kept it in a pension fund.
Until a year or two ago the NHS Superannuation was a net receipt for the taxpayer.
You had a chance to vote for the governments in many of those elections, and if you are at or close to pension age, in all of them.
The ones who bear no responsibility for what's been done is young people who are burdened with debts from the past, and shoulder higher rates of tax than those who aren't working do for the same income.
Currently a graduate on £30k pays a basic rate tax of 41% while a pension on the same amount pays a basic rate tax of 20%. That is completely unjustifiable.
If young people ever collectively vote to put the burden of mistakes made in the past more on those who voted in the past, and equalised tax rates or reversed them so payroll taxes were lower rather than higher, then that would not be a default on any contracts.
Utter bollox from you as usual, you cannot count bank loans as tax you numpty
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
Pedant's corner: that's an arc not a ring.
A ring would also take in the delights of Ipswich, Felixstowe, Margate, and the South Coast from Dover to Worthing.
A decent road along the south coast would be a wonderful idea.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
We often lament about posters who disappear, but I think AM was a genuine loss to the site.
Agreed. Anyone know why he left? He was prolific, then seemingly disappeared overnight.
His partner was dependent on medication from the EU. Meeks was angry about this as he feared supplies would be disrupted by Brexit. Leavers were less than sympathetic, and escalation took place. Alastair left and never looked back. PB is frequently - how can I put this - interesting and it can serve as a useful early warning system for whatever the mad fuck politariat are planning this week, but it is not always necessary, and he worked out he could cope perfectly well without us.
Some PBers have blogs: Cyclefree has one, Alastair has one, Isam has/had one. Are there any others?
The three greatest events (i.e. betting victories) on pb.com were:
1. The 50-1 bet by OGH on Obama for US President. 2. The SNP to sweep the board at the 2015GE. 3. AndyJS' legendary spreadsheet for the Brexit referendum.
Will the site produce another betting victory to compare with those past triumphs?
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
Pedant's corner: that's an arc not a ring.
A ring would also take in the delights of Ipswich, Felixstowe, Margate, and the South Coast from Dover to Worthing.
A decent road along the south coast would be a wonderful idea.
Point of pedantry accepted!
A proper ring might not be a bad idea to be fair, although you’d need a really big tunnel from east of Rochester to Southend.
But this is what we did with the M25, within my living memory, and the M40 even more recently.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
Is this good news on Suella Braverman's career development?
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
We haven't given them enough tanks, because Ben Wallace feels the Ukrainians haven't given him sufficient tanks?
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
Like everything the BBC does, they’re way more concerned about the ‘diversity’ of the presenters, than the actual show.
If you actually want to attract a younger audience, than continue this brilliant experiment from seven years ago: Pete Tong and the Ibiza Prom <<<——Warning to anyone in their 30s and 40s, the linked video contains 90 minutes of house music played by a full orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
Well yes obviously its means tested..if you have a basic state pension and 30k other pension you wont be able to claim it as you shouldnt
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
It's the National Youth Orchestra which means the younger presenters have been allowed on / out.
And Jess Gillam is lovely - she's probably met and spoken to everyone in the orchestra at some point given the amount of time she willing spends doing youth band concerts (where it will be the local bands + a couple of professional soloists).
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
Like everything the BBC does, they’re way more concerned about the ‘diversity’ of the presenters, than the actual show.
If you actually want to attract a younger audience, than continue this brilliant experiment from seven years ago: Pete Tong and the Ibiza Prom
Future presenters have to start somewhere and at least Jess knows music which is rather a rarity on these shows.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
Well yes obviously its means tested..if you have a basic state pension and 30k other pension you wont be able to claim it as you shouldnt
But if you have basic state pension and a similar sized private pension, and you rent, you'll get Housing Benefit.
I would guess a good proportion of the current £10bn spend on HB is to pensioners because those of working age who are getting support will get it through UC as a 'housing element'. The move to UC from legacy benefits is why HB spend has appeared to be coming down.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
Kiev is the place to be at the moment for software developers. They live a very good life on $4k a month, speak excellent English, are productive and grateful for the work.
Don’t mind the occasional air raid siren on the conference call, and you’ll be okay.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
Kiev is the place to be at the moment for software developers. They live a very good life on $4k a month, speak excellent English, are productive and grateful for the work.
Don’t mind the occasional air raid siren on the conference call, and you’ll be okay.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 pcm is peanuts?
That's £21.6k per annum which is more than some people who work full time earn.
And the people working full time for the less-than-peanuts are paying taxes. Including National Insurance.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
My company was working in Sofia, London, US and India at that time.
They did an internal study - London was the cheapest in terms of code per dollar. Sofia was second, India was utterly rubbish.
Given the work was the same work, on the same technologies and platform, it was a nearly perfect comparison.
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There have been persistent rumours that the Chinese have been pushing back - that if Russia looks like collapsing they will up their support.
Looks like the BBC is trying to re-brand its Proms coverage on BBC4. Presenter is a very northern lady with poor diction who's wearing a bizarre red suit, an articulate young chap who's nonetheless wearing what looks like a beret on his head whilst indoors and a slightly eccentric young woman who had problems in school.
Like everything the BBC does, they’re way more concerned about the ‘diversity’ of the presenters, than the actual show.
If you actually want to attract a younger audience, than continue this brilliant experiment from seven years ago: Pete Tong and the Ibiza Prom
Future presenters have to start somewhere and at least Jess knows music which is rather a rarity on these shows.
The Prom was great and the commentators were enthusiastic.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The trouble with debates on Ukraine (aside from none of us being Ukrainian) is that there are multiple overlapping questions people are trying to address, and they get conflated:
- was Russia right to invade / was it provoked by NATO/Banderites/Ukraine shelling the Donbas: I think very few here buy this line (would be very different on a US forum no doubt) - can and will Ukraine have military success? That’s a question none of us have the answer to. But it’s susceptible to bias depending on the first question. There are also different mental timetables in play - Should the west do more to help Ukraine win? I suspect most people think yes (again unlike say US right-wing forums) but how much and how far is largely dependent on how worried people are about escalation
However, argument here tends to be more rhetorical than that. Because we are annoyed or exasperated by what others seem to be saying. So we hide our own uncertainties, simplify the dividing lines, and deliver polemic.
Or, in some cases (more than one) we just hide behind snark, because that’s easier.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
Kiev is the place to be at the moment for software developers. They live a very good life on $4k a month, speak excellent English, are productive and grateful for the work.
Don’t mind the occasional air raid siren on the conference call, and you’ll be okay.
Unstupid question: where are the jobsites?
Good question, which I’ll take away and get back to you.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
Not what I said at all we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Allow working from home and all the people like me that hated being anywhere near london can move away. I move to the south east in 1987....90% of people I worked with would have rather stayed home...the number that wanted to live in london and loved it was minimal
WFH is great at the moment for people with London salaries and provincial living costs. In time, that will change as firms realise they can recruit in the frozen north for lower salaries. Some industries have already been through this with offshoring.
Even if recruiting in the north with northern wages...shit thats still jobs for people in areas with no jobs....why see it as a bad thing
That's a great thing: it means that wealth is going to be less concentrated in the South East.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
That’s been tried and failed.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
Wasn't there a survey back in 2018 or so where the most productive places for software were London and then Sofia.
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
My company was working in Sofia, London, US and India at that time.
They did an internal study - London was the cheapest in terms of code per dollar. Sofia was second, India was utterly rubbish.
Given the work was the same work, on the same technologies and platform, it was a nearly perfect comparison.
India is still trying to trade off its reputation from a decade or more ago, when they hired the best of the best graduates to work for Western companies. Now they’re hiring the average graduates, have raised the wages to meet their own higher cost of living, and extended profits for the outsourcing middlemen who have a better understanding of global markets.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
To enforce a no-fly zone, you would have
1) NATO aircraft threatening to shoot down Russian aircraft 2) Possibly shooting down Russian aircraft 3) Either allow themselves (the NATO aircraft) to be shot at from across the border, by air to air and ground to air systems. 4) Or attack aircraft over Russian airspace and SAM systems on the ground in Russian territory.
A no fly zone over Ukraine would therefore mean a substantial and direct battle between NATO and Russia. Unless the Russians took their ball and went home.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There were 4 puns in that sentence that didn't get picked up. I'm guessing geometry puns are less amusing than song lyric ones.
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
You can roughly draw a ring that goes Cambridge > MK > Oxford > Newbury > Basingstoke, and develop both road and rail along the ring, with several new towns along the way.
The EEE (English Economic Engine).
Build a wall to stop the entitled feckers getting out.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
Not what I said at all we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion
So we SHOULD have enforced a no-fly zone when Zelensky asked for it? You guys really need that manual.
To understand the brain of Labour’s high command, and to fully appreciate why it so often defaults to a defensive caution, the first step is to grasp how terrified they are of losing an election virtually everyone else assumes the party must win.
To smother Tory attempts to depict Labour as reckless with the nation’s finances, big-ticket spending items have either been postponed, as is the case with the green prosperity plan, or obliviated, as with the erstwhile commitment to abolish student tuition fees. Labour will not put a date on when it would reverse Tory welfare cuts, including the two-child cap on child benefit that its own frontbenchers have previously denounced as “heinous” and “obscene”. Angst about these compromises and retreats runs through the party all the way up to the shadow cabinet, but not to the extent that it has triggered open revolt. “It’s a very painful place to be,” remarks one member of the shadow cabinet.
This does not mean that Labour is becoming indistinguishable from the Conservatives, the glib charge from the puerile segment of the left. The subtler critique is that a strategy that focuses on safety first actually contains risks. One danger is that Labour is becoming best known not for the policies it promotes, but for the pledges it has ditched and the ambitions it has diluted. Another concern is that Sir Keir is conceding too much territory to the right and by doing so limiting Labour’s scope to deliver substantial change in government.
… the political climate of today is starkly and grimly different to the atmosphere of upbeat anticipation that prevailed in the run-up to the landslide victory in 1997 won by Sir Tony to the soundtrack of Things Can Only Get Better. “That song resonated because it felt it was the mood of the country at the time. That’s not the mood now by a long shot,” said Sir Keir. “It is a mistake for us to speak to the country as it was in 1997. We’ve got to speak to the country as it is in 2023. The mood of the country is pretty bleak.”
The missing ingredient is hope.
The challenge for him and his team is to make the thought of a Labour government more enthusing. Sir Keir is not wrong to think that voters need to believe that his party can be trusted with power, but it will be a mistake if he emphasises reassurance entirely to the exclusion of offering any inspiration.
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The 'far left' and 'far right' taking the same side, while the centre take the opposite, is not remotely unusual though. Its standard horseshoe theory.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
We were talking about a hypothetical retired couple.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
Not what I said at all we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion
So we SHOULD have enforced a no-fly zone when Zelensky asked for it? You guys really need that manual.
No because I outlined what we should have provided which was munitions, training, weapons. I also outlined what we shouldnt supply which is nato forces. A no fly zone involves nato planes shooting at russian ones over ukraine. I know you are thick but how does what I said imply anything about a no fly zone should be enforced.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
We were talking about a hypothetical retired couple.
There should be no reason a retired couple need to stay in london.
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The 'far left' and 'far right' taking the same side, while the centre take the opposite, is not remotely unusual though. Its standard horseshoe theory.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
I think that the language used in the US will change considerably under a different administration, but the reality on the ground will continue to be pretty much the same as it is now, no matter who is elected.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
Not what I said at all we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion
So we SHOULD have enforced a no-fly zone when Zelensky asked for it? You guys really need that manual.
No because I outlined what we should have provided which was munitions, training, weapons. I also outlined what we shouldnt supply which is nato forces. A no fly zone involves nato planes shooting at russian ones over ukraine. I know you are thick but how does what I said imply anything about a no fly zone should be enforced.
You also said ‘we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion’ which suggests that your opinions are all over the shop. That’ll come as a bit of a shock to everyone.
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The 'far left' and 'far right' taking the same side, while the centre take the opposite, is not remotely unusual though. Its standard horseshoe theory.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
I think that the language used in the US will change considerably under a different administration, but the reality on the ground will continue to be pretty much the same as it is now, no matter who is elected.
That sounds like hopecasting and the future of Ukraine is too important for that.
Do you think the reality on the ground would have been the same in the UK had Corbyn won?
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
We were talking about a hypothetical retired couple.
There should be no reason a retired couple need to stay in london.
No, none at all. Ship them out to wherever's cheapest.
Of course all their family and friends might be in London, their entire support network as they get older, and they may have lived their whole lives in London but, f*ck 'em, serves them right for being poor.
I hate people saying "I support Ukraine, but don't give them X (started with tanks ffs) because escalation" (and I'm a nookphobe)
They're cowards for Putin
Did it start with tanks? The countries supplying Ukraine with weapons have from the start refused to give Ukraine all they asked for when they asked for it. Still the case today.
Can’t remember a lot of support on here for Sturgeon when she suggested enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which I think Ukraine asked for) might be a thing, but perhaps everyone was too busy handing out white feathers.
That’s because “enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine”, is fluffy language that describes NATO aircraft sending bombs and missiles into Russia.
So Zelensky was using fluffy language to ask for bombs and missiles to be sent into Russia?
As would all of us, standing in Zelensky’s shoes on 24th Feb 2022.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Ah, so only certain people should be gung-ho, and other people aren’t gung-ho enough? Really need a manual of goodthink engagement.
Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off.
I’m glad everyone’s agreed that it would be foolish to give Ukraine and Zelensky everything they ask for. No confusion there.
Not what I said at all we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion
So we SHOULD have enforced a no-fly zone when Zelensky asked for it? You guys really need that manual.
No because I outlined what we should have provided which was munitions, training, weapons. I also outlined what we shouldnt supply which is nato forces. A no fly zone involves nato planes shooting at russian ones over ukraine. I know you are thick but how does what I said imply anything about a no fly zone should be enforced.
You also said ‘we should give the ukranians everything they ask for is my opinion’ which suggests that your opinions are all over the shop. That’ll come as a bit of a shock to everyone.
My original statement
"Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off."
Which part of that implies I support no fly zones. My comment about all they asked for applied to my earlier statement. IE all the munitions, arms and training they asked for. Stop being a twat and trying to be clever it doesn't suit you
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The 'far left' and 'far right' taking the same side, while the centre take the opposite, is not remotely unusual though. Its standard horseshoe theory.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
I think that the language used in the US will change considerably under a different administration, but the reality on the ground will continue to be pretty much the same as it is now, no matter who is elected.
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Additionally debt interest repayments for 2023 is estimated at a massive £110 billions
Good job the economically prudent Conservative government have spent the past 13 years driving down the national debt, eh?
Oh...
No fan of the conservatives as you know but they were actually reducing the yearly deficit that brown left till covid. Personally I would have preferred in 2010 they said no more borrowing for everyday expenditure and cut state spending by the amount of deficit. I suspect however people like you would have screamed bloody murder if they had done so.
Every year there is a deficit it adds to national debt. So either we cut the deficit to zero in one foul swoop or we keep adding to national debt. Which do you want?
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Additionally debt interest repayments for 2023 is estimated at a massive £110 billions
Good job the economically prudent Conservative government have spent the past 13 years driving down the national debt, eh?
Oh...
Err closing the economy down for 2 years due to covid, the war in Ukraine, and to a degree Brexit are the drivers behind this debt and I doubt labour would have made it any less with their desire to lockdown longer
the most obvious weapons the Ukrainians are lacking have been fighter jets and long range artillery. We've sent them the storm shadow and France has sent something similar but the US refuses to send ATACMS. The fact we are only now talking about sending fighter jets 18 months after the start of the full scale war is damning. They're obviously going to need them in the longer term so where was the planning?
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
There’s so much politics around this war in the US, that’s not the case almost anywhere else.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
The 'far left' and 'far right' taking the same side, while the centre take the opposite, is not remotely unusual though. Its standard horseshoe theory.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
I think that the language used in the US will change considerably under a different administration, but the reality on the ground will continue to be pretty much the same as it is now, no matter who is elected.
That sounds like hopecasting and the future of Ukraine is too important for that.
Do you think the reality on the ground would have been the same in the UK had Corbyn won?
I think that the MIC in the US is more powerful than any president, and that they’ll find ways to continue what they do regardless of who’s nominally in charge.
Similar thinking from the permenant bureaucracy was very much in evidence between Jan 2017 and Jan 2021.
Now normally I’d say that was a bad thing, but in the case of Ukraine I’ll say it’s a good thing.
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Pissing it all away on Green Crap. Just as I thought.
Bedtime!
There's another tab in the spreadsheet which shows welfare spending by age group:
Total expenditure directed at children = £3.5bn Total expenditure directed at people of working age = £100bn Total expenditure directed at pensioners = £151bn
"Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off."
Which part of that implies I support no fly zones. My comment about all they asked for applied to my earlier statement. IE all the munitions, arms and training they asked for. Stop being a twat and trying to be clever it doesn't suit you
Apols, I was working on the assumption that you had a passing acquaintance with the English language. I shall use your example and stop trying to be clever.
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Pissing it all away on Green Crap. Just as I thought.
Bedtime!
There's another tab in the spreadsheet which shows welfare spending by age group:
Total expenditure directed at children = £3.5bn Total expenditure directed at people of working age = £100bn Total expenditure directed at pensioners = £151bn
That breakdown is a bit misleading given that lots of benefits associated with having children go to the parent.
"Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off."
Which part of that implies I support no fly zones. My comment about all they asked for applied to my earlier statement. IE all the munitions, arms and training they asked for. Stop being a twat and trying to be clever it doesn't suit you
Apols, I was working on the assumption that you had a passing acquaintance with the English language. I shall use your example and stop trying to be clever.
Was my first statement explicit on what we should be supplying yes or no?
Was my first statement explicit in ruling out nato planes flying missions over ukraine yes or no?
It should be obvious even to the most feeble witted that my statement about giving them all they need was a follow on from my first which had explicitly defined where the limits of all they need is
The only one with no acquaintance with the english language here appears to be you
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
Everything in his recent record suggests he will. How long is PB going to indulge this cruel delusion? From his track record in office (he turned his back on the Ukranians cos Zelensky told him to do one over Hunter Biden, and reluctantly turned back only some time later) to his recent remarks, his pattern of behavior is clear.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Additionally debt interest repayments for 2023 is estimated at a massive £110 billions
Good job the economically prudent Conservative government have spent the past 13 years driving down the national debt, eh?
Oh...
No fan of the conservatives as you know but they were actually reducing the yearly deficit that brown left till covid. Personally I would have preferred in 2010 they said no more borrowing for everyday expenditure and cut state spending by the amount of deficit. I suspect however people like you would have screamed bloody murder if they had done so.
Every year there is a deficit it adds to national debt. So either we cut the deficit to zero in one foul swoop or we keep adding to national debt. Which do you want?
There's an estimated £17tn (£17,000,000,000,000) of wealth spread around the country (or rather not spread, more: concentrated in the top 10%, 5% and 1%) so maybe some of that could be taxed to, yes cut the deficit significantly.
PS It's not strictly true that you have to have a deficit of zero to avoid adding to the national debt since the latter is generally measured as a % of GDP, so growing GDP whilst running a small deficit can see the overall level of debt come down. And there is the key to the fundamental hash Cameron and Osborne made of the 2010s - austerity strangled growth. They should have taxed more to reduce the deficit whilst maintaining public services.
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn Universal Credit £51bn Disability Benefits £29bn Housing Benefit £14bn Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC) Child Benefit £12bn Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners) Working Tax Credit £7bn Pension Credit £5bn Carer's Allowance £4bn
Additionally debt interest repayments for 2023 is estimated at a massive £110 billions
Good job the economically prudent Conservative government have spent the past 13 years driving down the national debt, eh?
Oh...
No fan of the conservatives as you know but they were actually reducing the yearly deficit that brown left till covid. Personally I would have preferred in 2010 they said no more borrowing for everyday expenditure and cut state spending by the amount of deficit. I suspect however people like you would have screamed bloody murder if they had done so.
Every year there is a deficit it adds to national debt. So either we cut the deficit to zero in one foul swoop or we keep adding to national debt. Which do you want?
There's an estimated £17tn (£17,000,000,000,000) of wealth spread around the country (or rather not spread, more: concentrated in the top 10%, 5% and 1%) so maybe some of that could be taxed to, yes cut the deficit significantly.
PS It's not strictly true that you have to have a deficit of zero to avoid adding to the national debt since the latter is generally measured as a % of GDP, so growing GDP whilst running a small deficit can see the overall level of debt come down. And there is the key to the fundamental hash Cameron and Osborne made of the 2010s - austerity strangled growth. They should have taxed more to reduce the deficit whilst maintaining public services.
The 17trillion is based on paper well, the property market crashes 50% suddenly it is 8.5 trillion. The houses are all still there and all the same. I agree on the gdp to a certain extent but remain t be convinced the absolute number doesn't matter if gdp doubles and so does national debt theoretically yes its the same but the trouble is the debt repayment also doubled. GDP doubling does not imply tax revenues have doubled
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
We were talking about a hypothetical retired couple.
There should be no reason a retired couple need to stay in london.
No, none at all. Ship them out to wherever's cheapest.
Of course all their family and friends might be in London, their entire support network as they get older, and they may have lived their whole lives in London but, f*ck 'em, serves them right for being poor.
Sometimes it's the other way around. Poor council flat tenants can stay for life in their community, with their family and friends, but middle class people have to move when they can't afford to stay.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
Only if you are on basic pension so bollox
You're the one talking bollocks. As I said earlier: "Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent."
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
1800 is peanuts, the rent in London will take all that. It is still Bart Simpson talking pish about pensioners, the half wit has a fetish about them. I hope by teh time he gets to pension age they have scrapped it and the moron has to live in a tent.
£1800 maybe peanuts but the HB is capped at £1278 pm for private rents in Central London.
Why should we be encouraging people to live in london that need a subsidy of 15366 a year?. If they move out and londoners need their toilet cleaned they will have to pay enough for the cleaners to live there
I'm reporting it, not defending it. Personally I think housing benefit is simply a government subsidy to landlords but I have yet to work out a better solution.
I was not accusing you of defending it, merely pointing out the insanity of it. We often hear about polluters paying out based upon externatalites such as poor health. About time we had londoners paying out for the externatalities of living in london frankly and stop forcing the tax payers all over to keep funding their cheap staff
We were talking about a hypothetical retired couple.
There should be no reason a retired couple need to stay in london.
No, none at all. Ship them out to wherever's cheapest.
Of course all their family and friends might be in London, their entire support network as they get older, and they may have lived their whole lives in London but, f*ck 'em, serves them right for being poor.
Sometimes it's the other way around. Poor council flat tenants can stay for life in their community, with their family and friends, but middle class people have to move when they can't afford to stay.
Also people like ben are in favour of a wealth tax mainly levelled on housing. They always say if they cant afford it they can downsize which will often mean them having to move away from their support community and area they grew old in.
Apparently it only counts having to do that if you are poor
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
Everything in his recent record suggests he will. How long is PB going to indulge this cruel delusion? From his track record in office (he turned his back on the Ukranians cos Zelensky told him to do one over Hunter Biden, and reluctantly turned back only some time later) to his recent remarks, his pattern of behavior is clear.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
He's pure zero-sum. It's whether you can persuade him that sending materiel to Ukraine is a win for the US.
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
Everything in his recent record suggests he will. How long is PB going to indulge this cruel delusion? From his track record in office (he turned his back on the Ukranians cos Zelensky told him to do one over Hunter Biden, and reluctantly turned back only some time later) to his recent remarks, his pattern of behavior is clear.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
He's pure zero-sum. It's whether you can persuade him that sending materiel to Ukraine is a win for the US.
Yup. And when you find out how to do that, please tell us...
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
Everything in his recent record suggests he will. How long is PB going to indulge this cruel delusion? From his track record in office (he turned his back on the Ukranians cos Zelensky told him to do one over Hunter Biden, and reluctantly turned back only some time later) to his recent remarks, his pattern of behavior is clear.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
He's pure zero-sum. It's whether you can persuade him that sending materiel to Ukraine is a win for the US.
He'll do what suits himself. The idea he's fixated on the US national interest seems rather quaint.
I’m no fan of Trump but he definitely won’t sell Ukraine down the river, nothing in his track record suggests that he might.
Everything in his recent record suggests he will. How long is PB going to indulge this cruel delusion? From his track record in office (he turned his back on the Ukranians cos Zelensky told him to do one over Hunter Biden, and reluctantly turned back only some time later) to his recent remarks, his pattern of behavior is clear.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
Ahem.
Trump respects strength and utility to the US himself.
Comments
But to respond to your point, I don't see why it need be either/or, its both. As a Northerner who lives in the North, and is a YIMBY, I'm entirely favour of construction up here, absolutely. Indeed I live in a fast developing New Town and practice what I preach and hope growth continues.
But I don't see why it needs only be us who get development. Our population has grown in this country so that means new development is needed pretty much everywhere, especially if you exclude development within protected lands then everywhere else needs to pick up the slack.
You could build more new towns in the South without them being stacked around Greater London. I'm in favour of new motorways in the North, but its ridiculous that there's no motorway providing a direct link between Oxford and Cambridge. Build one and you could put multiple new towns in-between the two cities, without overheating London or either city - indeed new towns can relieve pressure on old cities rather than add to it.
Do you think we should support Ukraine, for as long as they're willing to fight, to help them liberate their own lands and provide whatever weaponry and ammunition we can to help them to win their fight?
If so, you're pro-Ukraine. Even if you think it'll be difficult.
If no, if you think we should tell Ukrainians to give up their own land to Russia, then you're pro-Russia.
There's a difference between saying "this is difficult, we should do it anyway" and "this is difficult, lets not bother".
We should send in support tomorrow from the RAF and the USA to bomb Russia into oblivion and we should send our own troops into Ukraine to fight. Why are you so less pro-Ukraine than me???
They're cowards for Putin
Imagine flipping it the other way. Instead of being able to do some jobs some/all the time at home, everyone has to get into some sort of metal box costing time and money to go and work in an office that employers have to pay for. Because sometimes it's helpful to have co-workers randomly around, because it makes a certain sort of manager feel useful and because we have to be fair to people whose jobs have to be done on-site. I suspect the response would be similar to the Smash Martians watching humans.
I mean, do we want the country to be productive or not?
(Whether press barons and party funders are acting in the national interest, and what we should do with that information, is left as an exercise for the reader.)
One would also expect that programmers salaries in Europe would have declined in the post-2019 period, just as our rose.
Neither of those things have happened. The 2010s were not a period of particular profitability for IT companies in the UK (either relative to history or relative to European peers). Likewise, tech wages are rising across the continent currently.
My gut is that most things that affect wages are external: right now, the rise of ChatGPT in the developer space means that average developers are being "supercharged". I suspect that means more competition and lower wages.
And the rise of remote work means that development teams are increasingly distributed. That is not going to be good for wages of people in high cost locations.
At the same time, it also means conveyancing can be done by a chap in Bangalore. Which is great for global disparities and people who want to move house. But there are losers too.
A ring would also take in the delights of Ipswich, Felixstowe, Margate, and the South Coast from Dover to Worthing.
A decent road along the south coast would be a wonderful idea.
Since State Pension is what c. £900 pm, anyone renting with State Pension and an additional private pension of < £900 pm would be eligible for help with their rent through Housing Benefit (subject to savings not being too high).
If you don't trust me check it out yourself: https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk
A proper ring might not be a bad idea to be fair, although you’d need a really big tunnel from east of Rochester to Southend.
But this is what we did with the M25, within my living memory, and the M40 even more recently.
The long term numbers strongly suggest that productivity and wages are highly linked in the global economy. Hence the classic from the 80s - a German steelworker cost 20x the total cost of a steelworker in India. But produced 21x the amount of steel.
If you shift operations to Bangalore, you will find productivity there falls to match the cost of Labour.
This was why offshoring moved to Near Shoring - Eastern Europe where social structure and provision, governance etc were closer to fully developed world standards.
If you actually want to attract a younger audience, than continue this brilliant experiment from seven years ago:
Pete Tong and the Ibiza Prom <<<——Warning to anyone in their 30s and 40s, the linked video contains 90 minutes of house music played by a full orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall.
And Jess Gillam is lovely - she's probably met and spoken to everyone in the orchestra at some point given the amount of time she willing spends doing youth band concerts (where it will be the local bands + a couple of professional soloists).
I remember because in 2019 I was in Sofia and boy they might have been cheap but quality wasn't there.
Compared to the current work I'm seeing from India, outsourcing to Sofia is a way better (but still not good) plan.
I would guess a good proportion of the current £10bn spend on HB is to pensioners because those of working age who are getting support will get it through UC as a 'housing element'. The move to UC from legacy benefits is why HB spend has appeared to be coming down.
Don’t mind the occasional air raid siren on the conference call, and you’ll be okay.
That's £21.6k per annum which is more than some people who work full time earn.
And the people working full time for the less-than-peanuts are paying taxes. Including National Insurance.
I’m more hawkish than most on this conflict (and I’m actually in Ukraine at the moment!), but can understand the reticence of NATO armies sending ordnance into Russia as the war started.
The UK government does deserve a massive credit for the buildup though, with regular shipments of the NLAW anti-tank missiles into Kiev daily for a couple of weeks before the invasion.
Is it because the US want to keep Ukraine hanging by a thread and thus maximise their leverage? Do they worry about Russia doing so badly that they fear the internal destabilisation that might bring? Or do they want a protracted war so that Russia is weakened as much as possible? I really don't know.
It is interesting to see the dividing lines in Nato though. The UK/Dutch/Nordics/Baltics/Poles/Czechs seem to be the most belligerent.
They did an internal study - London was the cheapest in terms of code per dollar. Sofia was second, India was utterly rubbish.
Given the work was the same work, on the same technologies and platform, it was a nearly perfect comparison.
It starts with every shipment of arms being assigned a massive dollar value, that’s possibly the inflation-adjusted price of the now-obsolete weapons from several decades ago, and isn’t money actually being spent today, but allows opponents to suggest that this ‘money’ may better be spent domestically. The President saying “We are giving another $20bn to Ukraine” when there’s a massive domestic disaster in Hawaii, doesn’t help.
There’s also the running story of Hunter Biden and the very well paid job he had in Ukraine a few years ago, which is allowing Republicans to oppose military aid to Ukraine as a clear rebuke to Biden himself.
I suspect that the messaging would change under a different administration, but the actual result on the ground wouldn’t be too different. A Republican President would bring forward billions of dollars in defence spending to keep jobs in rural states, and casually announce a load of cheap disposals of old stuff to friendly NATO countries.
Nowhere else has such daily political dividing lines about this war, and it’s a little weird to watch their commentary on it. Basically the centrist position is to support the Ukranians, with both the anti-war left and the anti-spending right lined up on the other side.
ATACMS might actually be able to take out the Kerch bridge.
- was Russia right to invade / was it provoked by NATO/Banderites/Ukraine shelling the Donbas: I think very few here buy this line (would be very different on a US forum no doubt)
- can and will Ukraine have military success? That’s a question none of us have the answer to. But it’s susceptible to bias depending on the first question. There are also different mental timetables in play
- Should the west do more to help Ukraine win? I suspect most people think yes (again unlike say US right-wing forums) but how much and how far is largely dependent on how worried people are about escalation
However, argument here tends to be more rhetorical than that. Because we are annoyed or exasperated by what others seem to be saying. So we hide our own uncertainties, simplify the dividing lines, and deliver polemic.
Or, in some cases (more than one) we just hide behind snark, because that’s easier.
-
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2023
The spreadsheet is a very comprehensive resource for anyone interested in where a large chunk of our taxes go.
TLDR? Big ticket items (2023/24) are:
State Pension £124bn
Universal Credit £51bn
Disability Benefits £29bn
Housing Benefit £14bn
Employment and Support Allowance £13bn (legacy benefit for long-term sickness - being replaced by UC)
Child Benefit £12bn
Attendance Allowance £7bn (for pensioners)
Working Tax Credit £7bn
Pension Credit £5bn
Carer's Allowance £4bn
1) NATO aircraft threatening to shoot down Russian aircraft
2) Possibly shooting down Russian aircraft
3) Either allow themselves (the NATO aircraft) to be shot at from across the border, by air to air and ground to air systems.
4) Or attack aircraft over Russian airspace and SAM systems on the ground in Russian territory.
A no fly zone over Ukraine would therefore mean a substantial and direct battle between NATO and Russia. Unless the Russians took their ball and went home.
To understand the brain of Labour’s high command, and to fully appreciate why it so often defaults to a defensive caution, the first step is to grasp how terrified they are of losing an election virtually everyone else assumes the party must win.
To smother Tory attempts to depict Labour as reckless with the nation’s finances, big-ticket spending items have either been postponed, as is the case with the green prosperity plan, or obliviated, as with the erstwhile commitment to abolish student tuition fees. Labour will not put a date on when it would reverse Tory welfare cuts, including the two-child cap on child benefit that its own frontbenchers have previously denounced as “heinous” and “obscene”. Angst about these compromises and retreats runs through the party all the way up to the shadow cabinet, but not to the extent that it has triggered open revolt. “It’s a very painful place to be,” remarks one member of the shadow cabinet.
This does not mean that Labour is becoming indistinguishable from the Conservatives, the glib charge from the puerile segment of the left. The subtler critique is that a strategy that focuses on safety first actually contains risks. One danger is that Labour is becoming best known not for the policies it promotes, but for the pledges it has ditched and the ambitions it has diluted. Another concern is that Sir Keir is conceding too much territory to the right and by doing so limiting Labour’s scope to deliver substantial change in government.
… the political climate of today is starkly and grimly different to the atmosphere of upbeat anticipation that prevailed in the run-up to the landslide victory in 1997 won by Sir Tony to the soundtrack of Things Can Only Get Better. “That song resonated because it felt it was the mood of the country at the time. That’s not the mood now by a long shot,” said Sir Keir. “It is a mistake for us to speak to the country as it was in 1997. We’ve got to speak to the country as it is in 2023. The mood of the country is pretty bleak.”
The missing ingredient is hope.
The challenge for him and his team is to make the thought of a Labour government more enthusing. Sir Keir is not wrong to think that voters need to believe that his party can be trusted with power, but it will be a mistake if he emphasises reassurance entirely to the exclusion of offering any inspiration.
The problem Ukraine and West have though is that currently an extreme is running for one of the mainstream parties.
Trump and DeSantis are no more to be trusted on Ukraine or Russia than Corbyn and McDonnell were.
For the sake of Ukraine and the whole of the West we have to hope they're not victorious.
That doesn't apply to the entire GOP, any more than it applied to all of Labour. If its the likes of Christie who win, just like if Starmer does, then the aid will continue. Under Trump/DeSantis though then all bets are off.
Bedtime!
Do you think the reality on the ground would have been the same in the UK had Corbyn won?
Of course all their family and friends might be in London, their entire support network as they get older, and they may have lived their whole lives in London but, f*ck 'em, serves them right for being poor.
"Whats the confusion? We do all we can without spreading the conflict wider than russia vs ukraine. That means arms, equipement, training. No more. The first time a nato jet shoots down a russian plane then its all bets off."
Which part of that implies I support no fly zones. My comment about all they asked for applied to my earlier statement. IE all the munitions, arms and training they asked for. Stop being a twat and trying to be clever it doesn't suit you
Oh...
Every year there is a deficit it adds to national debt. So either we cut the deficit to zero in one foul swoop or we keep adding to national debt. Which do you want?
Similar thinking from the permenant bureaucracy was very much in evidence between Jan 2017 and Jan 2021.
Now normally I’d say that was a bad thing, but in the case of Ukraine I’ll say it’s a good thing.
Total expenditure directed at children = £3.5bn
Total expenditure directed at people of working age = £100bn
Total expenditure directed at pensioners = £151bn
Was my first statement explicit in ruling out nato planes flying missions over ukraine yes or no?
It should be obvious even to the most feeble witted that my statement about giving them all they need was a follow on from my first which had explicitly defined where the limits of all they need is
The only one with no acquaintance with the english language here appears to be you
Trump respects strength and utility to the US, and despises weakness and dependency on the US. His politics is purely transactional, not moral. If he could throw the Ukrainians into a charnel pit for a dollar profit he would do so and then go and have lunch.
PS It's not strictly true that you have to have a deficit of zero to avoid adding to the national debt since the latter is generally measured as a % of GDP, so growing GDP whilst running a small deficit can see the overall level of debt come down. And there is the key to the fundamental hash Cameron and Osborne made of the 2010s - austerity strangled growth. They should have taxed more to reduce the deficit whilst maintaining public services.
Apparently it only counts having to do that if you are poor
Trump respects strength and utility to the US himself.