Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
How did Germany buying Russian gas end up hurting them?
It turns out - as I've repeated ad nauseum - that energy is pretty fungible. The Russian "we'll cut the Europeans off and they'll freeze" threat turned out to be complete rubbish.
Now: you can argue that the Russians did believe it, and based their decisions on that misconception. But that's hardly the German's fault.
Maybe it didn't hurt Germany, but that's a different question from the US national interest.
OK.
How would US national interest have been better served if Germany had bought gas from other countries?
Russia would have still produced the gas. They would still have sold the gas, only to different countries.
It's against US interests for commercial ties between Germany and Russia to be too deep because it has the potential to create a viable global rival.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
FPT, even the US does better in public transport infrastructure than the UK:
That seems a really dodgy set of definitions to exclude heavy rail, buses, or ferries from your definition of public transport. Equally, it takes no account for the usability of the provision - merely its existence in some form...
Exactly: anyone who thinks the US has better public transport than the UK is a total idiot.
And anyone who thinks that public transport provision in the Netherlands is on par with the US, is also an idiot.
The Netherlands number is also wrong. There are exactly four cities in the Netherlands with populations over 250k:
- Amsterdam, which has a metro. - Rotterdam, which has a metro - The Hague, which has trams - Utrecht, which has light rail
The Norway number is just weird. There are only two urban centres with population over 250,000 -Oslo and Bergen so the only percentages they could quote are 0%,50% or 100%. How they get 65% is a mystery.
Apparently they have four, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim. Tho that still doesn’t explain 65%.
Unless Stavanger and Tronjheim have both increased their populations by 25% in the last 3 years that is not correct.
The OECD defines “functional urban areas”. I haven’t looked at their methodology, but i presume it goes beyond political boundaries which often provide false comparisons.
I have looked and it really is rubbish in terms of what we are discussing.
According to the OECD a Functional Urban Area includes not only the city but all the adjacent non urban area which serves as commutor and feeder areas for the city. So According to their definition - and they are explicit in this - the Oxford FUA includes the Vale of the White Horse and West Oxfordshire and the Southhampton FUA includes the New Forest and the Test Valley.
Most of the areas listed as part of the Stavanger and Tronjheim FUAs are small villages and rural communities.
It is rubbish and has absolutely no bearing on what we have been discussing.
So you disagree that commuter areas should be included in an analysis of commuting systems?
“It’s a view”.
I disagree that any defintion of a city should include villages and towns miles from the urban area. I doubt anyone on here would seriously include the New Forest as part of the Southhampton Urban Area.
Face it, you used data without checking how it had been collected and what it was actually referencing. It may have some function in a different debate but in this instance complaining that a tram system does not extend to the New Forest of the Vale of the White Horse is pretty desperate stuff.
Well I disagree with you.
Southampton’s commuter area does extend to the New Forest, as you can see from the “travel to work area” maps published after every census.
You are perhaps caught up on the words “urban area”. And you are quarrelling now with the OECD and urban geographers.
The economic reason for public transport systems is indeed to improve access for a catchment of labour to jobs.
It’s entirely possible to imagine a tram from, say, Lyndhurst into Soton town centre.
Auckland, which has crap public transport, but with which I’m familiar, has a line terminating in the bush clad rurality of “Swanson” in the West, which is 10 miles from downtown.
No I am caught up on the fact that we were discussing cities with trams, metro and light rail systems and you have tried to introduce rural area miles from the urban sprawl because you won't admit that you used data without checking what it actually referred to.
No I correct that, you did admit that and when someone checked it for you and found out it was rubbish you then doubled down on it.
As someone has already said, your numbers were a classic example or garbage in garbage out.
And you have the cheek to criticise Andy's fact checking.
I haven’t introduced rural area miles, it’s the OECD!
Travel to work areas or functional urban areas or whatever you want to call them are pretty standard comparators, especially when one is talking about commuter systems.
Even the Tube goes out to deepest Amersham! But hey, you do you.
You introduced it by sticking with the idiotic OECD defintition even after the faults in it had been pointed out to you.
It really is sad you can't just admit that you made a mistake.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
Wasn't that to his credit, where Phil - whatever happened to him? - got his idea for leader from and it was a good tip.
He didn't look bad. But he was up against Richard Burgon FFS
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
How did Germany buying Russian gas end up hurting them?
It turns out - as I've repeated ad nauseum - that energy is pretty fungible. The Russian "we'll cut the Europeans off and they'll freeze" threat turned out to be complete rubbish.
Now: you can argue that the Russians did believe it, and based their decisions on that misconception. But that's hardly the German's fault.
Maybe it didn't hurt Germany, but that's a different question from the US national interest.
OK.
How would US national interest have been better served if Germany had bought gas from other countries?
Russia would have still produced the gas. They would still have sold the gas, only to different countries.
It's against US interests for commercial ties between Germany and Russia to be too deep because it has the potential to create a viable global rival.
That means it's not really in the US's national interest for anyone to trade with anyone who's not the US.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
The referendum was certainly not pointless. Though I agree with you about the running away bit.
But of course the referendum wouldn't have been necessary if Major hadn't been such a Euro-loon. I do enjoy the fact that it was his own utter stupidity regarding the Euro whilst chancellor that cme back to destroy him as PM.
Both of the people in this photo, President Donald Trump and NBA star Eric Gordon, are 6’3” and 215 pounds
Goes to show why BMI is such a stupid health measure
Quite. Muscle is a lot heavier than fat, as I keep telling my wife.
In cases like mine before I lost much of my weight it was a valid tool. But it is used by a lot of industrial/workplace medicals (not least my own) as a hard and fast measure which penalises the muscled. And offshore there are still a lot of that type - partly because of the nature of their work and partly because when thry are off shift there is bugger all to do other than go to the gym.
So I am still a stone or more overweight but have a reasonable BMI whilst other, far fitter and stronger people fail the BMI test.
I was gratified to hear from my Doctor recently that apparently if the Gloucester Rugby Team were to turn up at the surgery for weighing tomorrow they would probably all be classed as obese.
That doesn’t really explain the comparison with European peers, though, does it.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
We had loads of "real" railways long before other places got trams or light rail, and although I'm not an expert, unlike some on here, I suspect that we might have already built railway lines in many of the places we might have later built light rail.
Of course UK public transport looks particularly rubbish if you ignore our most used modes, and the one we spend the most money on. Likewise UK telecoms would look rubbish if you exclude our mobile networks and the absolutely massive fibre build-out that is taking place.
However.
I don't think it's FBPE Frothing to say that the UK economy isn't in great shape, and hadn't been for a while- going back well before 2016. And we all want to make things better... don't we?
So one way forward is to look for ways that the UK does things differently to Abroad and see if there are any lessons from that.
One possibility is that our public transport mix in second tier cities is less useful. Maybe buses and heavy rail are less useful than trams and metros. (Perhaps buses are too slow and unreliable, perhaps heavy rail doesn't go to the right places. I don't know.)
But if we bristle at any unfavorable comparison and seek to poke holes in it, we're not going to get anywhere as a country.
(I've mentioned before that my big fear is that people and countries often need to hit rock bottom before they rethink. The UK is a long long way from that, but it would be nice to improve things before we got there.)
Thank you for putting it much more gracefully than me.
My fear is that many on here are quite representative in that they’d prefer to “bristle” as you put it, rather than confront reality and find practical possible solutions.
I often note that Britain is now quite a bit behind the productivity or wealth frontier so in theory there ought to be several things we can do to escalate growth rates. There’s a lot of catch up to do and I see no good reason why Britain can’t aspire to be as well off as it’s neighbours and peer countries.
There are many things we can, should and must do to start a national recovery, and some of these may involve emulating successful policies from the Continent. But not all. How comfortable are you and Stuartinromford with items on the agenda that make use of no longer being in the EU, or might involve disagreement with the EU? Or do you insist that these don't exist?
I am quite happy to discuss them. You mistake me if you think I believe everything about the EU is amazing, or even if
Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
Again, it’s not obvious the facts here are wrong. You can complain about the exclusion of buses, but I haven’t seen you correct the data.
My gentle advice is not to go into the fact-checking business yourself.
You've been called out on it and you're desperately trying to wriggle out of it and save face.
Not at all. You’ve simply dismissed it, as you do with any data you dislike (pretty much most data these days, it must be exhausting).
Barty has done his usual thing of setting up a straw man.
Tyndall has got himself entangled in a debate with urban geographers and the OECD.
Nope, I have got myself in a debate with someone who can't be bothered to actually check the definitions of the data he is using and then lacks the class to admit they were actually wrong when it is pointed out to them.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
The referendum was certainly not pointless. Though I agree with you about the running away bit.
But of course the referendum wouldn't have been necessary if Major hadn't been such a Euro-loon. I do enjoy the fact that it was his own utter stupidity regarding the Euro whilst chancellor that cme back to destroy him as PM.
Karma baby.
We can agree to disagree re referendum because I don't want to start that argument again.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
He didn't - he also gave us a shit 'deal' that virtually guaranteed that remain lost.
I just saw there is another train strike tomorrow. It is 19p per mile to travel by train, on an off peak ticket with a railcard. (plus £5 for the bus to get to the nearest train station, plus an extra 1.5 hours time, due to the limited service on strike day). However it is 5p per mile to travel by plane later in the day, which sometimes falls to as little as 2.5p per mile.
Air travel is all well and good if you happen to be at an airport and wish to go to another airport.
I'm in North Wales leading on a camp for teenagers which finishes tomorrow. One of the other leaders who doesn't drive is heading back to Halifax - it's essentially impossible by public transport tomorrow. He'd already booked train tickets before the strikes were announced and the train operators won't give him a refund. I'm going to end up driving him to somewhere on the M60 where another mate is driving down from Halifax to give him a lift home. Public transport in the UK is fairly rubbish a the best of times, but truly awful during the current strikes.
That doesn’t really explain the comparison with European peers, though, does it.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
We had loads of "real" railways long before other places got trams or light rail, and although I'm not an expert, unlike some on here, I suspect that we might have already built railway lines in many of the places we might have later built light rail.
Of course UK public transport looks particularly rubbish if you ignore our most used modes, and the one we spend the most money on. Likewise UK telecoms would look rubbish if you exclude our mobile networks and the absolutely massive fibre build-out that is taking place.
However.
I don't think it's FBPE Frothing to say that the UK economy isn't in great shape, and hadn't been for a while- going back well before 2016. And we all want to make things better... don't we?
So one way forward is to look for ways that the UK does things differently to Abroad and see if there are any lessons from that.
One possibility is that our public transport mix in second tier cities is less useful. Maybe buses and heavy rail are less useful than trams and metros. (Perhaps buses are too slow and unreliable, perhaps heavy rail doesn't go to the right places. I don't know.)
But if we bristle at any unfavorable comparison and seek to poke holes in it, we're not going to get anywhere as a country.
(I've mentioned before that my big fear is that people and countries often need to hit rock bottom before they rethink. The UK is a long long way from that, but it would be nice to improve things before we got there.)
Thank you for putting it much more gracefully than me.
My fear is that many on here are quite representative in that they’d prefer to “bristle” as you put it, rather than confront reality and find practical possible solutions.
I often note that Britain is now quite a bit behind the productivity or wealth frontier so in theory there ought to be several things we can do to escalate growth rates. There’s a lot of catch up to do and I see no good reason why Britain can’t aspire to be as well off as it’s neighbours and peer countries.
There are many things we can, should and must do to start a national recovery, and some of these may involve emulating successful policies from the Continent. But not all. How comfortable are you and Stuartinromford with items on the agenda that make use of no longer being in the EU, or might involve disagreement with the EU? Or do you insist that these don't exist?
I am quite happy to discuss them. You mistake me if you think I believe everything about the EU is amazing, or even if
Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
Again, it’s not obvious the facts here are wrong. You can complain about the exclusion of buses, but I haven’t seen you correct the data.
My gentle advice is not to go into the fact-checking business yourself.
You've been called out on it and you're desperately trying to wriggle out of it and save face.
Not at all. You’ve simply dismissed it, as you do with any data you dislike (pretty much most data these days, it must be exhausting).
Barty has done his usual thing of setting up a straw man.
Tyndall has got himself entangled in a debate with urban geographers and the OECD.
Nope, I have got myself in a debate with someone who can't be bothered to actually check the definitions of the data he is using and then lacks the class to admit they were actually wrong when it is pointed out to them.
You are so hopelessly out of your depth on this one. I’ve no idea why you’d quarrel with the OECD’s definitions, but I’m sure it makes sense on Planet Tyndall.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
He didn't - he also gave us a shit 'deal' that virtually guaranteed that remain lost.
Wasn't that down to that inflexible asshole, Juncker?
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
That doesn’t really explain the comparison with European peers, though, does it.
There’s maybe something in what you say, given Netherland’s results, but it’s a weak case as you make it.
We had loads of "real" railways long before other places got trams or light rail, and although I'm not an expert, unlike some on here, I suspect that we might have already built railway lines in many of the places we might have later built light rail.
Of course UK public transport looks particularly rubbish if you ignore our most used modes, and the one we spend the most money on. Likewise UK telecoms would look rubbish if you exclude our mobile networks and the absolutely massive fibre build-out that is taking place.
However.
I don't think it's FBPE Frothing to say that the UK economy isn't in great shape, and hadn't been for a while- going back well before 2016. And we all want to make things better... don't we?
So one way forward is to look for ways that the UK does things differently to Abroad and see if there are any lessons from that.
One possibility is that our public transport mix in second tier cities is less useful. Maybe buses and heavy rail are less useful than trams and metros. (Perhaps buses are too slow and unreliable, perhaps heavy rail doesn't go to the right places. I don't know.)
But if we bristle at any unfavorable comparison and seek to poke holes in it, we're not going to get anywhere as a country.
(I've mentioned before that my big fear is that people and countries often need to hit rock bottom before they rethink. The UK is a long long way from that, but it would be nice to improve things before we got there.)
Thank you for putting it much more gracefully than me.
My fear is that many on here are quite representative in that they’d prefer to “bristle” as you put it, rather than confront reality and find practical possible solutions.
I often note that Britain is now quite a bit behind the productivity or wealth frontier so in theory there ought to be several things we can do to escalate growth rates. There’s a lot of catch up to do and I see no good reason why Britain can’t aspire to be as well off as it’s neighbours and peer countries.
There are many things we can, should and must do to start a national recovery, and some of these may involve emulating successful policies from the Continent. But not all. How comfortable are you and Stuartinromford with items on the agenda that make use of no longer being in the EU, or might involve disagreement with the EU? Or do you insist that these don't exist?
I am quite happy to discuss them. You mistake me if you think I believe everything about the EU is amazing, or even if
Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
Again, it’s not obvious the facts here are wrong. You can complain about the exclusion of buses, but I haven’t seen you correct the data.
My gentle advice is not to go into the fact-checking business yourself.
You've been called out on it and you're desperately trying to wriggle out of it and save face.
Not at all. You’ve simply dismissed it, as you do with any data you dislike (pretty much most data these days, it must be exhausting).
Barty has done his usual thing of setting up a straw man.
Tyndall has got himself entangled in a debate with urban geographers and the OECD.
Nope, I have got myself in a debate with someone who can't be bothered to actually check the definitions of the data he is using and then lacks the class to admit they were actually wrong when it is pointed out to them.
You are so hopelessly out of your depth on this one. I’ve no idea why you’d quarrel with the OECD’s definitions, but I’m sure it makes sense on Planet Tyndall.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
How did Germany buying Russian gas end up hurting them?
It turns out - as I've repeated ad nauseum - that energy is pretty fungible. The Russian "we'll cut the Europeans off and they'll freeze" threat turned out to be complete rubbish.
Now: you can argue that the Russians did believe it, and based their decisions on that misconception. But that's hardly the German's fault.
Maybe it didn't hurt Germany, but that's a different question from the US national interest.
OK.
How would US national interest have been better served if Germany had bought gas from other countries?
Russia would have still produced the gas. They would still have sold the gas, only to different countries.
It's against US interests for commercial ties between Germany and Russia to be too deep because it has the potential to create a viable global rival.
If only somebody had written an article which included the thirty-year-old rapprochement between Germany and Russia
On Topic: I can usually at least understand things I dislike (Brexit, the Tories, jazz) but I do struggle with Donald Trump. WTF is the appeal? Emotional age of about 7. The attention span of a flea. Pig ignorant, cruel, petty, narcissistic, deeply misogynist. Funny? Sure, if your idea of humour consists exclusively of cheap digs at other people. And just so obviously out for himself and only himself.
Yet tens of millions of adult Americans are in thrall to the horrible geezer. I don’t get it. The reasons usually advanced (globalisation hurting the trad white working class, liberal elites sneering at them and their values, a feeling of abandonment by mainstream politicians); these make for good weighty articles etc but it doesn’t ring true to me as an explanation for something so bizarre.
It looks like a mass psychosis to me. More akin to Jonestown than a political populist movement. He was a horror of a person too who was able to brainwash many who came into his orbit. I wonder how many ‘Trumpers’ are actually damaged vulnerable people, lonely perhaps, men and women who have rather lost their bearings in life? I’d be interested in the stats on that.
What’s wrong with jazz? Admittedly some of it is unlistenable but you’d have to have feet buried in concrete not to be moved by Billie Holiday
Conservatives a century back tried to ban it as immoral.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
He didn't - he also gave us a shit 'deal' that virtually guaranteed that remain lost.
Wasn't that down to that inflexible asshole, Juncker?
The gargoyles in the European Commission were worth at least five points to Leave.
The RMT and ASLEF simply don't get that their rail strikes are inconveniencing normal people, and not the powers that be!
Ordinarily, the employer would be increasingly inconvenienced by strikes. Not the Tories. They don't give a toss, and they're quite happy with the train staff and doctors and teachers and lawyers staying on strike as long as they want.
The RMT and ASLEF simply don't get that their rail strikes are inconveniencing normal people, and not the powers that be!
Ordinarily, the employer would be increasingly inconvenienced by strikes. Not the Tories. They don't give a toss, and they're quite happy with the train staff and doctors and teachers and lawyers staying on strike as long as they want.
I have next to zero sympathy for RMT and ASLEF to be honest.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
I’m not but I don’t remember Harold Wilson much after he stopped being PM. He thought he was losing his formidable intellect and was no longer up to the job. Did that perception not affect his contributions afterwards? When I was trying to overcome the boredom of my law degree one of the things I read was the Crossman diaries. They were genuinely hilarious. Someone who had a very high opinion of his own intellect being played on a string by Wilson and really not seeing it.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Wilson left office because of illness. Alzheimers, I think.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
She was so scared of PMQs against KEIR STARMER she hid under a desk.
Liz Truss spent her entire premiership looking like a deer caught in a pair of headlights . . . just before getting run over.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
The RMT and ASLEF simply don't get that their rail strikes are inconveniencing normal people, and not the powers that be!
Ordinarily, the employer would be increasingly inconvenienced by strikes. Not the Tories. They don't give a toss, and they're quite happy with the train staff and doctors and teachers and lawyers staying on strike as long as they want.
I have next to zero sympathy for RMT and ASLEF to be honest.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
He didn't - he also gave us a shit 'deal' that virtually guaranteed that remain lost.
Wasn't that down to that inflexible asshole, Juncker?
That's not my reading of the situation. I think Juncker was actually prepared to go some way down the line to an 'associate membership' for Britain - I don't think Cameron actually wanted that. He was a convinced europhile who wanted the UK 'all in' and thought he could deliver it.
The RMT and ASLEF simply don't get that their rail strikes are inconveniencing normal people, and not the powers that be!
Ordinarily, the employer would be increasingly inconvenienced by strikes. Not the Tories. They don't give a toss, and they're quite happy with the train staff and doctors and teachers and lawyers staying on strike as long as they want.
I have next to zero sympathy for RMT and ASLEF to be honest.
It looks like you're carrying the same pint around.
PB pedantry: it's (a) not a pint glass, unless he took the glass with him, which is impossible as UK pint glasses don't have Ukrainian logos, and (b) the number of [edit] decilitres has visibly reduced, so it can't be a pint qua 454 cc.
The RMT and ASLEF simply don't get that their rail strikes are inconveniencing normal people, and not the powers that be!
Ordinarily, the employer would be increasingly inconvenienced by strikes. Not the Tories. They don't give a toss, and they're quite happy with the train staff and doctors and teachers and lawyers staying on strike as long as they want.
I have next to zero sympathy for RMT and ASLEF to be honest.
They are the Millwall of the union movement.
Nobody likes them...they don't care?
The point is, they don't particularly have to. Any more than the Coinservative Government cares.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Wilson left office because of illness. Alzheimers, I think.
Not sure of the diagnosis, but he saw it coming, and/or was told of it, and pulled the plug pronto on his premiership.
Took some guts, but it was the responsible thing.
Some others suich as Churchill should have done the same. Or had their parties insist.
"Exterior Night (Italian: Esterno notte) is a 2022 Italian-language drama film co-written and directed by Marco Bellocchio based on the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro."
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Technically, four terms. Or at least he won four elections: 1964, 1966, 1974 Feb, 1974 Oct. In terms of elections won he beats Blair.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Cameron was better than Major. But to be honest that is not saying much about any of them.
Cameron introduced a pointless referendum and then ran away...
He didn't - he also gave us a shit 'deal' that virtually guaranteed that remain lost.
Wasn't that down to that inflexible asshole, Juncker?
That's not my reading of the situation. I think Juncker was actually prepared to go some way down the line to an 'associate membership' for Britain - I don't think Cameron actually wanted that. He was a convinced europhile who wanted the UK 'all in' and thought he could deliver it.
I can't remember if it is apocryphal, but my swiss-cheese memory insists Juncker offered it and Cameron turned it down. Happy to be contradicted if wrong.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Wilson left office because of illness. Alzheimers, I think.
Not sure of the diagnosis, but he saw it coming, and/or was told of it, and pulled the plug pronto on his premiership.
Took some guts, but it was the responsible thing.
Some others suich as Churchill should have done the same. Or had their parties insist.
I think the diagnosis he got proved somewhat pessimistic. I suspect he would have been more of a challenge to Thatcher in 79 than Callaghan was. But he would probably still have lost.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Technically, four terms. Or at least he won four elections: 1964, 1966, 1974 Feb, 1974 Oct. In terms of elections won he beats Blair.
Also the last PM to win an election after losing one?
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
Harold had a bad press during his two terms, but I thought he was vastly under rated. Mind you, I was a youngster at the time (very, very young in 1964!) He didn't really engage politically after he left office. Ted, on the other hand was great as a thorn in Thatcher's side.
Wilson left office because of illness. Alzheimers, I think.
Not sure of the diagnosis, but he saw it coming, and/or was told of it, and pulled the plug pronto on his premiership.
Took some guts, but it was the responsible thing.
Some others suich as Churchill should have done the same. Or had their parties insist.
I think the diagnosis he got proved somewhat pessimistic. I suspect he would have been more of a challenge to Thatcher in 79 than Callaghan was. But he would probably still have lost.
Sure, but those things always have some uncertainty. In fact, come to think of it, it might well have been his demitting office that gave him a boost.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
She was so scared of PMQs against KEIR STARMER she hid under a desk.
Liz Truss spent her entire premiership looking like a deer caught in a pair of headlights . . . just before getting run over.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
It doesn't mean she was holding the House spellbound with 3 hour speeches a la Palmerston's 'Civis Romanus Sum', but it does mean she was answering questions and arguing the politics of the issues, unlike her predecessor and her successor, and these facts were noted by commentators on all sides and no side of the debate.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
She was so scared of PMQs against KEIR STARMER she hid under a desk.
Liz Truss spent her entire premiership looking like a deer caught in a pair of headlights . . . just before getting run over.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
It doesn't mean she was holding the House spellbound with 3 hour speechless a la Palmerston's 'Civis Romanus Sum', but it does mean she was answering questions and arguing the politics of the issues, unlike her predecessor and her successor, and these facts were noted by commentators on all sides and no side of the debate.
She was really, really rubbish at 'it'. Whether 'it' was broad politics, macro-economics or wrapping xmas presents. I've no particular problem with someone putting forward her side of the argument - but she was... well... rubbish.
This may shock some of you, but Trump may not always tell he truth about his height and weight: "The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican political committee, launched a contest last week offering a free mug to anyone who accurately guessed Trump’s weight. BetOnline, an online wagering site, published odds on whether Trump’s weight is over or under 278 pounds." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/24/trump-height-weight/
Sherrika Jackson smashing the championship record there! Impressive, although I’m still disappointed to see that world record still standing. 0.07 to go.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
She was so scared of PMQs against KEIR STARMER she hid under a desk.
Liz Truss spent her entire premiership looking like a deer caught in a pair of headlights . . . just before getting run over.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
It doesn't mean she was holding the House spellbound with 3 hour speechless a la Palmerston's 'Civis Romanus Sum', but it does mean she was answering questions and arguing the politics of the issues, unlike her predecessor and her successor, and these facts were noted by commentators on all sides and no side of the debate.
She was really, really rubbish at 'it'. Whether 'it' was broad politics, macro-economics or wrapping xmas presents. I've no particular problem with someone putting forward her side of the argument - but she was... well... rubbish.
Her rubbishness was presentational. Her policies have aged well, and her straight talking is missed. Sunak also has presentational issues, it's just that there's nothing good underneath either.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I commented on here a few nights ago how it can become possible for a political party in a democracy to be "captured" by a charismatic figure. The problem is political parties themselves tend not to be very democratic - when I was an activist an eternity ago I rarely joined discussions on policy, it was all about getting the next leaflet out, doing the next survey, recruiting the next member.
In that regard, successful parties tend to eschew the talking policy shop and get on with the job of winning elections and building strength - now, to be fair, avowedly anti-democratic parties like, for instance, the Bolsheviks or the NSDAP would recognise some of these traits. Yes, they used violence and intimidation but what they would recognise is internal discipline and purpose.
The paradox therefore is to be successful in a democracy you have to occasionally act in an undemocratic way. That means giving significant control to the leadership and especially the leader to, for example, ignore Conference decisions. The abdication of that power creates the illusion of unity and discipline - the leader sets the policies, if you criticise the leader you can be expelled - sound familiar?
Charismatic leaders like Trump flourish in such environments where, once their supporters have the levers of power within a party, they become almost impossible to shift. To be fair, the Democrat and Republican parties aren't the same as British parties and that may also contribute to the power of the "leader" who is usually the President or the most likely candidate to beat the President.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
How did Germany buying Russian gas end up hurting them?
It turns out - as I've repeated ad nauseum - that energy is pretty fungible. The Russian "we'll cut the Europeans off and they'll freeze" threat turned out to be complete rubbish.
Now: you can argue that the Russians did believe it, and based their decisions on that misconception. But that's hardly the German's fault.
Maybe it didn't hurt Germany, but that's a different question from the US national interest.
OK.
How would US national interest have been better served if Germany had bought gas from other countries?
Russia would have still produced the gas. They would still have sold the gas, only to different countries.
It's against US interests for commercial ties between Germany and Russia to be too deep because it has the potential to create a viable global rival.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think many thought highly of George Bush senior, I certainly did. His son, not so much. Clinton was such a painful waste of talent. He could really have been amongst the greats if he could only keep his flies fastened.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think history is proving kinder to Gerald Ford and Bush Sr than people were at the time.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
And that's the point. Rishi was popular when he was the only adult in the room under Boris and Liz Truss but has lost it with his absurd faux Boris act which I suspect is encouraged by those idiots at CCHQ.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think history is proving kinder to Gerald Ford and Bush Sr than people were at the time.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
Gerald Ford spent toooooo much of his post-Presidency playing golf and etc. in Palm Springs and etc. And NOT enough (or hardly any) in what might be called service to others, even broadly.
George Bush the Elder somewhat similar. In both cases, ex-POTUS was outshined in public esteem, during their lifetimes, by their former FLOTUS: Betty Ford and Barbara Bush.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
She was so scared of PMQs against KEIR STARMER she hid under a desk.
Liz Truss spent her entire premiership looking like a deer caught in a pair of headlights . . . just before getting run over.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
It doesn't mean she was holding the House spellbound with 3 hour speeches a la Palmerston's 'Civis Romanus Sum', but it does mean she was answering questions and arguing the politics of the issues, unlike her predecessor and her successor, and these facts were noted by commentators on all sides and no side of the debate.
I do remember that being commented upon in fairness.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
People believe things which are convenient to them.
Really, that's all you need to know. Humans aren't designed to rationally assess truth. Instead, when presented with a set of answers, they will ask themselves (subconsciously), which one of these being true is best for me? And then they will seek out reasons why that answer is correct.
This was the genius of social media. It presented people with the "truth" they wanted to hear. And the more that "truth" was reinforced, the harder it is to get people to accept alternatives.
Trump plugged into that*. He told a group of people "it's not your fault. it's the fault of [x]'. Which are the sweetest words in the English language. To be absolved of all resposibility, and to know that anything that negatively befell you was the result of the liberal elite / systematic racism / Mexican immigrants / etc.
Well, it's one hell of a rush.
Unless we can find a way to deprogram people. (And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
* As did Black Lives Matter, and a host of other people and organizations
A plague on all your houses doesn’t really work when there’s solid evidence that there is systematic racism, but there isn’t solid evidence that Mexican immigrants are to blame for all Americans’ ills. Sure, politicians can trade on blaming others and easy messages, but one side are exaggerating while the other are in cloud cuckoo land.
For example, we phrased it politely, but in a large study of students’ performance at a UK medical school, the only explanation left for differences in attainment by ethnicity was systematic racism: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1339899/ UCL has published a whole body of work on this. Our US colleagues have found similar. That’s just the area I know because I became involved in some of the research.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think history is proving kinder to Gerald Ford and Bush Sr than people were at the time.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
Clinton’s star probably still has further to fall if anything.
I just saw there is another train strike tomorrow. It is 19p per mile to travel by train, on an off peak ticket with a railcard. (plus £5 for the bus to get to the nearest train station, plus an extra 1.5 hours time, due to the limited service on strike day). However it is 5p per mile to travel by plane later in the day, which sometimes falls to as little as 2.5p per mile.
Air travel is all well and good if you happen to be at an airport and wish to go to another airport.
I'm in North Wales leading on a camp for teenagers which finishes tomorrow. One of the other leaders who doesn't drive is heading back to Halifax - it's essentially impossible by public transport tomorrow. He'd already booked train tickets before the strikes were announced and the train operators won't give him a refund. I'm going to end up driving him to somewhere on the M60 where another mate is driving down from Halifax to give him a lift home. Public transport in the UK is fairly rubbish a the best of times, but truly awful during the current strikes.
I'd agree - it just isn't an option outside of the main cities. I've been doing a 50 mile commute between two large towns on the south coast once a week which is at best 2 hours 10 by train, door to door. But there are many delays, missed connections, replacement busses etc to the point where it isn't reliable, sometimes the journey takes well over 3 hours. The cost is £27 return, so about 27p a mile in peak time. By car it is 1h 10 door to door.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think history is proving kinder to Gerald Ford and Bush Sr than people were at the time.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
The Natural was a superb book about Clinton by Joe Klein. I think on balance he gave him slightly more than a pass mark, albeit with some deep regrets. It’s a book I bought in the US because of the dust cover. It described Clinton trying to sell his third way in New Hampshire and, after a very difficult night, meeting Klein and his daughter Amy. He stops and explains to Amy that the reason she had been seeing less of her dad was that he was following him around. “ But let me tell you Amy, he talks about you all the time.” Just the best at retail politics of all time.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
I'm not particularly nostalgic over the quality of politicians we used to get. The past can often lend a veneer of sophistication, cover for some glaring personal flaws and political skulduggery, and the way we learn it makes it all seem more coherent a narrative, overseen by figures of greater vision, dynamism, and skill, than I suspect was the case a lot of the time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
Bob Altermeyer would probably argue that Trump is the classic narcissistic authoritarian leader. In his model, the population that needs / wants to be led by a “strong leader” casts about for such an individual to project their desires on. In turn, the narcissist politician has no internal moral value structure of their own & depends utterly on the approval of the crowd. The two amplify each other, the crowd giving their chosen leader the attention they crave in return for the leader telling the crowd exactly what they want to hear.
You can see some of this playing out in the way Trump casts out ideas almost randomly at events, and latches on to the ones that resonate with the crowd (lock her up!) & abandons the ones that the crowd dislikes (e.g. covid vaccination).
Altermeyer comes across merely as a partisan of the other side in that piece. His list of things that supposedly harmed the United States depends on having a particular view of US foreign policy that isn't universally shared. How did Trump's "threats to NATO", i.e. telling Germany to spend more on defence and stop buying Russian gas, harm the US? If only they'd listened at the time...
How did Germany buying Russian gas end up hurting them?
It turns out - as I've repeated ad nauseum - that energy is pretty fungible. The Russian "we'll cut the Europeans off and they'll freeze" threat turned out to be complete rubbish.
Now: you can argue that the Russians did believe it, and based their decisions on that misconception. But that's hardly the German's fault.
The threat may have been rubbish, but Germany was hurt.
Energy may be fungible, but at a price, not entirely for free. Especially when you have pipelines only coming from certain sources, so need an alternative source of energy (eg LNG via ships) to replace the pipeline gas, it can be dramatically different prices. LNG terminal gas imported does not cost the same as pipeline gas.
Germany is now in recession and is hurting even more than the UK is, despite proportionately using gas less than the UK does.
2019 figures the UK sourced over 40% of its electricity from gas, Germany about 20% (because it still primarily uses coal and we don't).
If energy were entirely fungible, then the UK would have been hurt much more than Germany was from the Russian shutdown, but the UK wasn't reliant on Russian energy so we were only affected by fungible global market movements.
Germany use proportionately less gas but was reliant on Russian gas, so not only were affected by fungible global movement costs but paid an additional penalty for having to change sources on top.
That penalty Germany paid is the price for being hooked on Russian gas and why they're hurting, and in recession, now.
Doesn't this make things a bit awkward with the african operations? I mean, it seems everyone knew Wagner was an arm of the Russian state, but those paying them there might have liked the pretence the slight distance of control offered about the scorpion in their midst.
I think Truss was and is a nutter. But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
I'm not particularly nostalgic over the quality of politicians we used to get. The past can often lend a veneer of sophistication, cover for some glaring personal flaws and political skulduggery, and the way we learn it makes it all seem more coherent a narrative, overseen by figures of greater vision, dynamism, and skill, than I suspect was the case a lot of the time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
I think things have got a lot worse. When you look at the quality of Wilson’s cabinets and the early Thatcher cabinets and compare them to either the current cabinet or the shadow cabinet today the difference in quality is truly painful.
Far fewer people of genuine talent are being attracted to politics these days. It’s become a much less tempting career. Public service seems to have died as an ethos. I don’t want to be naive about the past but ego seems to play a much greater role today.
@rcs1000 The cost of rapidly building new LNG Terminals alone have amounted to €10bn for Germany in order to diversify their energy away from Russian gas. That's just one element of the cost they've had to pay to move away from being hooked on Russian gas.
Yes. Stupid mistake. He had a couple of seconds to back out, passed a double yellow light board, and still didn’t lift until the last moment when the accident was inevitable. And then forgot what I was told on the first morning of the race licence school, that one should remove one’s hands from the steering wheel before the crash, as wheels have a habit of swinging round and cracking wrists. Obviously it’s not good to see drivers injured, but that one was his own fault.
I think Truss was and is a nutter. But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
I honestly don't think people would have minded 'Trussism done right' eg avoiding the own goals and lack of preparation, which sunk her.
I had wondered if the plan was going to be for Sunak to steady the ship to the point that a version of it could be retried withotu spooking everyone, but since the ship is still floundering we're still stuck bailing it out before we can think about adjusting the sails to aim for a new direction.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
I'm not particularly nostalgic over the quality of politicians we used to get. The past can often lend a veneer of sophistication, cover for some glaring personal flaws and political skulduggery, and the way we learn it makes it all seem more coherent a narrative, overseen by figures of greater vision, dynamism, and skill, than I suspect was the case a lot of the time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
I think things have got a lot worse. When you look at the quality of Wilson’s cabinets and the early Thatcher cabinets and compare them to either the current cabinet or the shadow cabinet today the difference in quality is truly painful.
Far fewer people of genuine talent are being attracted to politics these days. It’s become a much less tempting career. Public service seems to have died as an ethos. I don’t want to be naive about the past but ego seems to play a much greater role today.
In part, neo-liberalism has hollowed out the idea of public service as a kind of mentality for losers.
Globalisation has made the rewards outside politics literally life-changing.
And the modern media has made the job shit most of the time.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
I'm not particularly nostalgic over the quality of politicians we used to get. The past can often lend a veneer of sophistication, cover for some glaring personal flaws and political skulduggery, and the way we learn it makes it all seem more coherent a narrative, overseen by figures of greater vision, dynamism, and skill, than I suspect was the case a lot of the time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
I think things have got a lot worse. When you look at the quality of Wilson’s cabinets and the early Thatcher cabinets and compare them to either the current cabinet or the shadow cabinet today the difference in quality is truly painful.
Far fewer people of genuine talent are being attracted to politics these days. It’s become a much less tempting career. Public service seems to have died as an ethos. I don’t want to be naive about the past but ego seems to play a much greater role today.
It's a vicious circle. We treat people who aspire to be politicians with contempt, and many in politics are deserving of contempt, so whichever came first one result is fewer people of value wanting to go through the genuine burdens of political leadership, and fewer people within the political culture to encourage new people to not be awful, and then we are surprised when we don't like the people who do want to become leaders.
Just look at the viciousness of comments people have about local councillors, when if you meet any most of them are completely normal, harmless, and genuinely just trying to help out - the ones who are very political are often looked down on by others even in the same party.
Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
They've got a base.
This crap sells papers.
Expect more confected graphs in the FT showing the UK is shit/bottom of everything, and be suspicious accordingly.
Untrue. We already established we lead the world in infrastructure construction … costs.
You know nothing about infrastructure so you're totally unqualified to comment on it.
I have spent my whole live working in the sector.
Er, the very reason we can't take you on faith is that you are in the infrastructure industry and benefit from it.
You'd say just the same if a schoolteacher told you to piss off when you queried educational practice.
There is serious prima facie evidence that there is something very wrong with UK infrastructure and the prices charged. What the reasons are is a very good question, but it's not one going to be answered by simply telling people they are too stupid and naive and unknowledgeable.
Noah Lyles again, the sprint double! He’s got his eyes on Bolt’s records.
Long way from 19.51 to 19.10.
I suspect after Paris that Usain and FloJo will still have their records.
Bolt’s records were landmarks at the time, he was the standout athlete of a generation. That they’ve stood for 14 years is testament to his ability.
FloJo, well, umm. The 100m is posssibly the most controversial record ever ratified by the IAAF, and the 200m isn’t much better.
I was one of those hoping to see a lot of world records go at these championships, and have been a little disappointed. But championship records have been going, which is an indication of possibly some world records going next year at the Olympics.
I think Truss was and is a nutter. But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
I honestly don't think people would have minded 'Trussism done right' eg avoiding the own goals and lack of preparation, which sunk her.
I had wondered if the plan was going to be for Sunak to steady the ship to the point that a version of it could be retried withotu spooking everyone, but since the ship is still floundering we're still stuck bailing it out before we can think about adjusting the sails to aim for a new direction.
I think Truss was very unfortunate with her timing. But she also chose her timing (she could have waited), so gets no excuses for that.
In normal circumstances at a normal Budget then what she was proposing would have been quite modest steps to take, and mostly good ones.
The problem was that she did it without numbers bundled in with an incredibly extensive energy bailout, all at the same time as the Bank of England announced Quantitative Tightening.
Put it all together at once and it absolutely spooked the horses. It was a complete shit sandwich.
She should have just announced the energy bailout alone, separate from everything else, and had the other steps, costed, at the next Budget. The market would probably still have been spooked due to the size of the bailout, along with the QT, but politically the market being spooked by an energy bailout is completely different to the markets being spooked because of you.
She basically went out in a thunderstorm and acted as a lightning rod.
It was incredibly stupid politics, more than stupid economics.
On Sunak, I decided he was rubbish even earlier, during the 2019 GE, when he deputised for Boris in one of the leader debates. He was stilted, wooden and dull. Nothing since has changed my view for the better. Rather, I think, as LG says, he's added a rather poor Boris impression and a healthy dose of being patronising to his repertoire, not to mention the child-like PR videos. He's not really a serious politician.
He's been an MP for 8 years, a senior Minister for half of that, and a backbencher for only 3 years of it. Given how the next GE might go his entire political career might be over in a decade, before he turns 45.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
Of course it does, but our political institutions, including the way we recruit politicians, is up the spout.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
I'm not particularly nostalgic over the quality of politicians we used to get. The past can often lend a veneer of sophistication, cover for some glaring personal flaws and political skulduggery, and the way we learn it makes it all seem more coherent a narrative, overseen by figures of greater vision, dynamism, and skill, than I suspect was the case a lot of the time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
I think things have got a lot worse. When you look at the quality of Wilson’s cabinets and the early Thatcher cabinets and compare them to either the current cabinet or the shadow cabinet today the difference in quality is truly painful.
Far fewer people of genuine talent are being attracted to politics these days. It’s become a much less tempting career. Public service seems to have died as an ethos. I don’t want to be naive about the past but ego seems to play a much greater role today.
In part, neo-liberalism has hollowed out the idea of public service as a kind of mentality for losers.
Globalisation has made the rewards outside politics literally life-changing.
And the modern media has made the job shit most of the time.
Dunno how to fix it.
I would agree with all of your reasons and share your perplexity about what to do about it. It is a long way from being a UK only problem, as the US painfully shows, but we seem to have a particularly bad dose of the problem.
Sunak's favourability graph must be one of the sharpest changes in history.
That’s because he’s shit. I always said he was shit, long before it was fashionable. Indeed, I admit that I thought Truss outclassed him in the debates.
Is there any area in which he has comparative favourability over Starmer?
I give no credit to Truss. Sunak shot himself in the foot in the debates by being patronising and slimey, particularly when addressing anything Truss said. I was (am) not a Truss fan but Sunak's manner turned me right off him.
Truss also gave a good showing at PMQs, usually answering the question, and usually debating the politics of the question. Sunak just does a poor Boris impression.
And that's the point. Rishi was popular when he was the only adult in the room under Boris and Liz Truss but has lost it with his absurd faux Boris act which I suspect is encouraged by those idiots at CCHQ.
Thing is that it's very easy to look like an adult when Boris or Liz are on the stage.
Truss had redeeming features, including the right approach to ministerial misbehaviour, but not enough to counteract her negatives. Johnson had few positives at all.
But being better than those two isn't saying much. And Rishi seems to have learned his politics from BoJo, but he can't do it as well.
@rcs1000 The cost of rapidly building new LNG Terminals alone have amounted to €10bn for Germany in order to diversify their energy away from Russian gas. That's just one element of the cost they've had to pay to move away from being hooked on Russian gas.
As noted previously, in the supposed golden age the stereotypical Labour politician had been a trade union official or a union member in manual work or public service. The stereotypical Conservative politician had been spotted at Oxbridge and may have been the son of a local dignitary or farmer or a higher professional with standing in the community. The other notable detail is that most politicians had war service or at least National Service. Finally, for most, the notion since childhood had been that British public service meant leadership of a global superpower and bringing the civilising mission to India and Africa. How much of that world has been washed away.
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
I think history is proving kinder to Gerald Ford and Bush Sr than people were at the time.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
Gerald Ford spent toooooo much of his post-Presidency playing golf and etc. in Palm Springs and etc. And NOT enough (or hardly any) in what might be called service to others, even broadly.
George Bush the Elder somewhat similar. In both cases, ex-POTUS was outshined in public esteem, during their lifetimes, by their former FLOTUS: Betty Ford and Barbara Bush.
'He's alive, but unconscious' 'Just like Gerald Ford'
I think SKS has something interesting about him that his detractors seem to have underestimated. He does have a genuinely working class background and can speak to it. There's something vaguely British aspirational about it, I agree he hasn't communicated it brilliantly.
I think most would conclude though that he has been an effective leader - and has grown into the role. I have a lot more confidence in him than I did Ed M.
Major had a genuinely working class background and he was a pretty crap PM. I am more interested in what Starmer says and does than in his personal background.
I think Major has been a lot better than basically every Tory PM that has come since.
Major has remarkably improved as a PM since he stopped doing the job.
I think the same is true of Harold Wilson, but you are too young to remember him.
In US history, presidents who are/were rated better for their careers AFTER leaving office than while IN the White House;
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative > Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer) > William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice > Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency). > Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964. > Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself. > Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams > Martin Van Buren > John Tyler > Millard Filmore > James Buchanan > Grover Cleveland > Gerald Ford > George Bush the Elder > Bill Clinton > George W Bush the Younger > Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
People believe things which are convenient to them.
Really, that's all you need to know. Humans aren't designed to rationally assess truth. Instead, when presented with a set of answers, they will ask themselves (subconsciously), which one of these being true is best for me? And then they will seek out reasons why that answer is correct.
This was the genius of social media. It presented people with the "truth" they wanted to hear. And the more that "truth" was reinforced, the harder it is to get people to accept alternatives.
Trump plugged into that*. He told a group of people "it's not your fault. it's the fault of [x]'. Which are the sweetest words in the English language. To be absolved of all resposibility, and to know that anything that negatively befell you was the result of the liberal elite / systematic racism / Mexican immigrants / etc.
Well, it's one hell of a rush.
Unless we can find a way to deprogram people. (And PB is a massive fucking rare example of people actually discussing issues - even if some people are slightly mad on some subjects - rather than choosing an echo chamber.)
* As did Black Lives Matter, and a host of other people and organizations
A plague on all your houses doesn’t really work when there’s solid evidence that there is systematic racism, but there isn’t solid evidence that Mexican immigrants are to blame for all Americans’ ills. Sure, politicians can trade on blaming others and easy messages, but one side are exaggerating while the other are in cloud cuckoo land.
For example, we phrased it politely, but in a large study of students’ performance at a UK medical school, the only explanation left for differences in attainment by ethnicity was systematic racism: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1339899/ UCL has published a whole body of work on this. Our US colleagues have found similar. That’s just the area I know because I became involved in some of the research.
If you are concerned about immigration you would probably dispute the claim that there is no solid evidence that illegal immigration is a problem.
@rcs1000 The cost of rapidly building new LNG Terminals alone have amounted to €10bn for Germany in order to diversify their energy away from Russian gas. That's just one element of the cost they've had to pay to move away from being hooked on Russian gas.
They're not freezing, but I think being €10bn+ out of pocket is a case of being "hurt".
The UK Treasury has spent £24bn in the last 4 months to pay the Bank of England's losses on its firesale of UK Government bonds.
Yeah, I just alluded to that in my last comment on Truss, that is the QT which was announced within 24 hours of Kwarteng's Budget.
That was more mad economics than anything Kwarteng or Truss did, like Brown pre-announcing sale of gold.
Because Kwarteng and Truss went to bundle everything in at once with the energy bailout, they then took the hit on everything. The entire market movement was assigned as being their fault, when the QT and the energy bailout dwarfed their actions.
Stupid politics by them, on top of the Bank's stupid economics.
Had they just been patient, the market would have been unsettled due the energy bailout and the QT, but they wouldn't have taken the hit on that, it would simply have been the market conditions rather than them causing it in the media narrative.
Newspapers used to have decent fact checkers who wouldn't allow total nonsense to be printed. I don't know what happened to them.
They've got a base.
This crap sells papers.
Expect more confected graphs in the FT showing the UK is shit/bottom of everything, and be suspicious accordingly.
Untrue. We already established we lead the world in infrastructure construction … costs.
You know nothing about infrastructure so you're totally unqualified to comment on it.
I have spent my whole live working in the sector.
Er, the very reason we can't take you on faith is that you are in the infrastructure industry and benefit from it.
You'd say just the same if a schoolteacher told you to piss off when you queried educational practice.
There is serious prima facie evidence that there is something very wrong with UK infrastructure and the prices charged. What the reasons are is a very good question, but it's not one going to be answered by simply telling people they are too stupid and naive and unknowledgeable.
He’s a total bristler.
He’s the internet meme of a finger poised between two red buttons. One says, “more infra is good” The other says, “people calling for more/better infra are woke”.
I think Truss was and is a nutter. But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
What kind of growth? Labour supply or productivity?
Comments
It really is sad you can't just admit that you made a mistake.
He didn't look bad. But he was up against Richard Burgon FFS
Which makes the whole thing fairly absurd.
But of course the referendum wouldn't have been necessary if Major hadn't been such a Euro-loon. I do enjoy the fact that it was his own utter stupidity regarding the Euro whilst chancellor that cme back to destroy him as PM.
Karma baby.
I rest my case.
Great discussion here, whatever you think of Blair he can host a good discussion.
Glad to have you back debating with me.
Or maybe she means Jim?
I'm in North Wales leading on a camp for teenagers which finishes tomorrow. One of the other leaders who doesn't drive is heading back to Halifax - it's essentially impossible by public transport tomorrow. He'd already booked train tickets before the strikes were announced and the train operators won't give him a refund. I'm going to end up driving him to somewhere on the M60 where another mate is driving down from Halifax to give him a lift home. Public transport in the UK is fairly rubbish a the best of times, but truly awful during the current strikes.
I’ve no idea why you’d quarrel with the OECD’s definitions, but I’m sure it makes sense on Planet Tyndall.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/01/29/the-intermarium/
😀😀😀😀
Also really liked U2 Angel of Harlem.
They are the Millwall of the union movement.
When I was trying to overcome the boredom of my law degree one of the things I read was the Crossman diaries. They were genuinely hilarious. Someone who had a very high opinion of his own intellect being played on a string by Wilson and really not seeing it.
Does "gave a good showing" in BritSpeak, translate to "gave a feeble effort, bless her heart" in MidAmerican?
Took some guts, but it was the responsible thing.
Some others suich as Churchill should have done the same. Or had their parties insist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exterior_Night
"Exterior Night (Italian: Esterno notte) is a 2022 Italian-language drama film co-written and directed by Marco Bellocchio based on the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro."
Six-parter on 'Walter Presents' just now.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/live/athletics/65740177
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/24/trump-height-weight/
I can recall now how amused I was on learning that Trump (sometimes?) wears elevator shoes: https://twitter.com/RTMannJr/status/1242609977551982592?lang=en
(In some photographs you can see how they tilt him forward, and make walking a little awkward.)
> John Q Adams - mediocre POTUS defeated for reelection, but great US Representative
> Ulysses S Grant (but only for writing his memoirs under pressure of terminal cancer)
> William H Taft - mediocre POTUs defeated for reelection, but above-average Chief Justice
> Herbert Hoover - failed POTUS defeated for reelection, but esteemed for contributions to government, diplomacy and international humanitarian relief afterward (as indeed before his presidency).
> Harry S Truman - poll numbers abysmal when he left office, but steadily improved thereafter; personally recall by rockribbed GOP grandfather grudgingly praising HST circa 1964.
> Richard M Nixon - special case, not that he became what you'd call popular or esteemed post-Watergate, just that he DID climb a wee bit out of the shaft he'd dug for himself.
> Jimmy Carter - the prime example at the moment.
Presidents who did NOT get more popular after POTUS, at least during their remaining lifetime (an only including those who lived for some time after leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave):
> John Adams
> Martin Van Buren
> John Tyler
> Millard Filmore
> James Buchanan
> Grover Cleveland
> Gerald Ford
> George Bush the Elder
> Bill Clinton
> George W Bush the Younger
> Barack Obama
Bit early to tell for sure, but somehow doubt that Donald J Trump is gonna become a beloved elder whatever.
https://x.com/gafollowers/status/1695069623203357055
I commented on here a few nights ago how it can become possible for a political party in a democracy to be "captured" by a charismatic figure. The problem is political parties themselves tend not to be very democratic - when I was an activist an eternity ago I rarely joined discussions on policy, it was all about getting the next leaflet out, doing the next survey, recruiting the next member.
In that regard, successful parties tend to eschew the talking policy shop and get on with the job of winning elections and building strength - now, to be fair, avowedly anti-democratic parties like, for instance, the Bolsheviks or the NSDAP would recognise some of these traits. Yes, they used violence and intimidation but what they would recognise is internal discipline and purpose.
The paradox therefore is to be successful in a democracy you have to occasionally act in an undemocratic way. That means giving significant control to the leadership and especially the leader to, for example, ignore Conference decisions. The abdication of that power creates the illusion of unity and discipline - the leader sets the policies, if you criticise the leader you can be expelled - sound familiar?
Charismatic leaders like Trump flourish in such environments where, once their supporters have the levers of power within a party, they become almost impossible to shift. To be fair, the Democrat and Republican parties aren't the same as British parties and that may also contribute to the power of the "leader" who is usually the President or the most likely candidate to beat the President.
We already established we lead the world in infrastructure construction … costs.
Clinton was such a painful waste of talent. He could really have been amongst the greats if he could only keep his flies fastened.
It's also remarkable how far Clinton's star has fallen. Perhaps he could be due for a little... resurrection?
38% are Trump lovers, who will vote for him irrespective of whether he's a Republican, Independent, convicted, etc.
35% do not like Trump. (Mostly, however, they like him more than Biden.)
27% like Trump, but worry that he might not be electable in the Presidential election.
Right now, Trump is getting all his 38% (obviously) and about half of the last group.
I suspect after Paris that Usain and FloJo will still have their records.
I have spent my whole live working in the sector.
I don't rule out MPs being able to develop the necessary skills within a short time, and lord knows there's plenty of duffers who've been there decades, but I do wonder if political skills beyond slick media training require a bit more toiling away before you can properly manage it.
George Bush the Elder somewhat similar. In both cases, ex-POTUS was outshined in public esteem, during their lifetimes, by their former FLOTUS: Betty Ford and Barbara Bush.
Thought in this instance, Britain is not at all alone.
The decline in the quality of politicians in our lifetime is horribly palpable.
For example, we phrased it politely, but in a large study of students’ performance at a UK medical school, the only explanation left for differences in attainment by ethnicity was systematic racism: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1339899/ UCL has published a whole body of work on this. Our US colleagues have found similar. That’s just the area I know because I became involved in some of the research.
It’s a book I bought in the US because of the dust cover.
It described Clinton trying to sell his third way in New Hampshire and, after a very difficult night, meeting Klein and his daughter Amy. He stops and explains to Amy that the reason she had been seeing less of her dad was that he was following him around. “ But let me tell you Amy, he talks about you all the time.”
Just the best at retail politics of all time.
But at the moment the political culture does feel very tired, lazily regurgitating cliches or attempts at lame reactionary ideas, and generally only looking positive, cooperative or innovative when compared to the political landscape of the United States.
Energy may be fungible, but at a price, not entirely for free. Especially when you have pipelines only coming from certain sources, so need an alternative source of energy (eg LNG via ships) to replace the pipeline gas, it can be dramatically different prices. LNG terminal gas imported does not cost the same as pipeline gas.
Germany is now in recession and is hurting even more than the UK is, despite proportionately using gas less than the UK does.
2019 figures the UK sourced over 40% of its electricity from gas, Germany about 20% (because it still primarily uses coal and we don't).
If energy were entirely fungible, then the UK would have been hurt much more than Germany was from the Russian shutdown, but the UK wasn't reliant on Russian energy so we were only affected by fungible global market movements.
Germany use proportionately less gas but was reliant on Russian gas, so not only were affected by fungible global movement costs but paid an additional penalty for having to change sources on top.
That penalty Germany paid is the price for being hooked on Russian gas and why they're hurting, and in recession, now.
#BREAKING President Putin signs decree forcing paramilitary fighters to swear oath to Russian flag
https://nitter.net/AFP/status/1695055972698411136#m
Doesn't this make things a bit awkward with the african operations? I mean, it seems everyone knew Wagner was an arm of the Russian state, but those paying them there might have liked the pretence the slight distance of control offered about the scorpion in their midst.
But she was right about one thing: Britain needs growth.
It is precisely because we don’t have growth, and an ageing demographic, that our taxes are rising - via bracket creep - from the low 30s % of GDP where Britain has traditionally been - to the high 30s - ie “German levels”.
Albeit without the commensurate quality of public services.
People say, wrongly, that Truss’s position on growth is just a truism. Well no, not quite. There’s actually very little consensus behind “growth” in modern day Britain.
Voters - and most commentators - are more motivated by small boats, nimbyism, the NHS, and the cost of living. Fair enough, but they fail to realise that without growth, most of these problems get worse.
Far fewer people of genuine talent are being attracted to politics these days. It’s become a much less tempting career. Public service seems to have died as an ethos. I don’t want to be naive about the past but ego seems to play a much greater role today.
https://www.energate-messenger.com/news/231038/costs-for-lng-terminals-skyrocket#:~:text=Berlin (energate) - The costs,the end of the line.
They're not freezing, but I think being €10bn+ out of pocket is a case of being "hurt".
I had wondered if the plan was going to be for Sunak to steady the ship to the point that a version of it could be retried withotu spooking everyone, but since the ship is still floundering we're still stuck bailing it out before we can think about adjusting the sails to aim for a new direction.
Globalisation has made the rewards outside politics literally life-changing.
And the modern media has made the job shit most of the time.
Dunno how to fix it.
Just look at the viciousness of comments people have about local councillors, when if you meet any most of them are completely normal, harmless, and genuinely just trying to help out - the ones who are very political are often looked down on by others even in the same party.
You'd say just the same if a schoolteacher told you to piss off when you queried educational practice.
There is serious prima facie evidence that there is something very wrong with UK infrastructure and the prices charged. What the reasons are is a very good question, but it's not one going to be answered by simply telling people they are too stupid and naive and unknowledgeable.
FloJo, well, umm. The 100m is posssibly the most controversial record ever ratified by the IAAF, and the 200m isn’t much better.
I was one of those hoping to see a lot of world records go at these championships, and have been a little disappointed. But championship records have been going, which is an indication of possibly some world records going next year at the Olympics.
In normal circumstances at a normal Budget then what she was proposing would have been quite modest steps to take, and mostly good ones.
The problem was that she did it without numbers bundled in with an incredibly extensive energy bailout, all at the same time as the Bank of England announced Quantitative Tightening.
Put it all together at once and it absolutely spooked the horses. It was a complete shit sandwich.
She should have just announced the energy bailout alone, separate from everything else, and had the other steps, costed, at the next Budget. The market would probably still have been spooked due to the size of the bailout, along with the QT, but politically the market being spooked by an energy bailout is completely different to the markets being spooked because of you.
She basically went out in a thunderstorm and acted as a lightning rod.
It was incredibly stupid politics, more than stupid economics.
Truss had redeeming features, including the right approach to ministerial misbehaviour, but not enough to counteract her negatives. Johnson had few positives at all.
But being better than those two isn't saying much. And Rishi seems to have learned his politics from BoJo, but he can't do it as well.
'Just like Gerald Ford'
That was more mad economics than anything Kwarteng or Truss did, like Brown pre-announcing sale of gold.
Because Kwarteng and Truss went to bundle everything in at once with the energy bailout, they then took the hit on everything. The entire market movement was assigned as being their fault, when the QT and the energy bailout dwarfed their actions.
Stupid politics by them, on top of the Bank's stupid economics.
Had they just been patient, the market would have been unsettled due the energy bailout and the QT, but they wouldn't have taken the hit on that, it would simply have been the market conditions rather than them causing it in the media narrative.
He’s the internet meme of a finger poised between two red buttons.
One says, “more infra is good”
The other says, “people calling for more/better infra are woke”.