A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
It is good to see that British supermarkets are ensuring that the ladies that work in them are getting some exercise. That will good for the ladies, their customers, and, in the long run, the supermarkets' profits.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
Exactly. The putative Viz character would give a long lecture on why this was unacceptable, and miss his train as a result.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
I was in the supermarket just now and a couple of shop ladies were cursing the tills ("there's absolutely no change in any of them"), then had to set about refilling each till with metric tonnes of pointless scraps of metal.
I winced and wondered to myself, "how long will it be before we start seeing the first cashless supermarkets?"
It can't be too long. I mean, nobody was paying in cash, and yet the poor girls had to waste their time lugging around bits of near-worthless metal into heavy-duty machines almost nobody wants.
What a ludicrous waste of time and energy.
Still useful if you want to give a tip.
Yes that's the one and only thing I miss cash for. Pressing a cold coin into a warm palm. Or vice versa sometimes.
If the German parties continue to try to ignore the AFD the problem isn’t going to go away.
They probably need to be invited into government to take the mystique away - but you can at least understand in some part why that draws uncomfortable historical parallels.
I was in the supermarket just now and a couple of shop ladies were cursing the tills ("there's absolutely no change in any of them"), then had to set about refilling each till with metric tonnes of pointless scraps of metal.
I winced and wondered to myself, "how long will it be before we start seeing the first cashless supermarkets?"
It can't be too long. I mean, nobody was paying in cash, and yet the poor girls had to waste their time lugging around bits of near-worthless metal into heavy-duty machines almost nobody wants.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
FPT: Let me quote again: HYUFD said: "The very poor in the US ie the unemployed and those without health insurance are worse off than our poor as they have little welfare state, public housing or NHS to fall back on"
From Wikipedia, we can learn that there are about 85 million poor Americans who receive Medicaid, and that the total expenditure is about $600 billion a year. So, per capita, the US governments spend about $7,000 for each poor person, just from Medicaid. (Older poor people, who are eligible for Medicare, as well as Medicaid, receive even more.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
So, HYUFD, approximately what does the UK spend on the NHS each year? Are there any other signficant expenditures that should be included? How does that compare to the US expenditure on Medicaid alone, total, and per capita?
(I will say, as I have before, that I am not a defender of the many US health care systems. But I think most criticisms of them could be better informed.
Pro tip: Anyone who says there is an American health care system either doesn't know what they are talking about, or is being sloppy. There are many health care systems here.)
Yes but if you are middle income and ineligible for Medicaid and unable to afford health insurance you are effectively without healthcare in the US. At least the NHS ensures everyone is guaranteed healthcare regardless of income.
Plus of course if you are unemployed in the US you can only claim time limited benefits for 6 months provided you have not contributed or foodstamps (if you are an able bodied male also time limited) and there is only limited public housing. Whereas in the UK there is non time limited universal credit and contributions based JSA and probably more public housing still per capita too.
So my point the very poorest are probably worse off in the US than here stands (and those unable to afford health insurance but ineligible for Medicaid). Even if you are far better off if a higher income earner in the US with generally much lower taxes and higher salaries
Hands that do Dishy Rishi’s Wishes, to misquote an old advert…
Talking of which, the big winner of this reshuffle...
(Claire) Coutinho’s first cabinet role is a major promotion – she has only been a parliamentary under-secretary of state, the most junior ministerial role, so far in her career, and is the first of the 2019 intake to become a cabinet minister. This promotion may reflect her close relationship with the PM – she was Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS) when he was chancellor and served as his special adviser before being elected.
If the German parties continue to try to ignore the AFD the problem isn’t going to go away.
They probably need to be invited into government to take the mystique away - but you can at least understand in some part why that draws uncomfortable historical parallels.
I see the AfD has a decided it doesn't like Nazis any more:
I was in the supermarket just now and a couple of shop ladies were cursing the tills ("there's absolutely no change in any of them"), then had to set about refilling each till with metric tonnes of pointless scraps of metal.
I winced and wondered to myself, "how long will it be before we start seeing the first cashless supermarkets?"
It can't be too long. I mean, nobody was paying in cash, and yet the poor girls had to waste their time lugging around bits of near-worthless metal into heavy-duty machines almost nobody wants.
What a ludicrous waste of time and energy.
Still useful if you want to give a tip.
Yes but he wouldn't have to put up with having to shop alongside the poor who are the most likely to be unbanked so no doubt sees it as a plus
A lot of his issues appear to be just brazen lying, why it's taken this long to take him to task is beyond me.
Or it would be, but that's the world we live in.
To be cynical, New York was more-or-less derelict and more-or-less bankrupt until Donald Trump started rebuilding the place, so there might have been an element of knowing he's a crook but he's *our* crook from the New York establishment who therefore averted their gaze because such was the price of rejuvenating their city.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
Cheques?!?
In relation to a relatively small business which accepts card only, surely they DO have an alternative, if the payment system breaks down, of accepting cash? It's inconvenient but not impossible to switch pretty quickly to cash payment if your card payment system breaks down one day.
That's harder for a supermarket just because of the volume of money involved, although it seems quite possible they'd retain tills physically capable of storing cash, and may well also have back-up card payment systems and a dedicated data connection to the premises (business connectivity is very different to residential/small business broadband - you'll have a service level agreement with virtually 100% reliability guaranteed and a dedicated line).
I'm not saying supermarkets are right to ditch cash in terms of impact on a tiny minority of shoppers. But I'd suggest they probably have thought pretty carefully about the technical failure risks involved and the risks for a large supermarket are much, much lower than for a cafe in Euston.
A coastal Suffolk town will be left bankless when Barclays closes its final branch there in November.
The Southwold Barclays, the last remaining branch in the seaside town, is one of the 15 branches of the bank which are due to close by the end of the year. Barclays said it took the decision after identifying just 17 people used the branch as their only source of banking.
Locals will be able to get cash from the local Post Office but the nearest branch of the bank will now be in Lowestoft, a 30-minute drive away.
Therese Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, has promised to appeal to cash network operator LINK for a banking hub, a centre which provides cash services and access to different banks on each day of the week, Eastern Daily News reported.
Elsewhere in Suffolk, Christine Wheeler, Mayor of Beccles, said she intended to challenge the banking giant’s decision to close in the town, according to other local news reports.
Barclays has already announced more than 60 closures so far in 2023 and branches in central London, Hove and Portsmouth are also pencilled in for closure.
The bank has closed more than 614 branches since 2019, making up 27pc of the 2,277 outlets shuttered by the major banks in the time period.
Elsewhere residents in a village on the outskirts of the expanded Ulez area face being forced to pay £12.50 to go to their nearest Barclays, with a branch in the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Peter no longer open from September.
At the same time the local village Post Office, which is now the only place offering cash services in the village, is due to close in September for a week-long refurbishment, leaving residents without cash access.
As a part time resident I can tell you that Adnams refuses to take cash and as they basically own Southwold the Southwold residents (or as we call them 2nd home owners as there are only about 3 residents left) don't use cash.
I'm off there this weekend.
Enjoy. What are your plans? Staying where? We might be up there as well. Might bump into you and not know it. Tip: The Roc Thurs and Fri evening outside is excellent. Closes at 7pm. I think this weekend is the last for the summer.
For someone who is himself still on the Trump train Kemp at least seems to play things mostly straight. Perhaps why he won re-election easily whilst the GOP lost both senate seats in the state.
That's pretty much it. Georgians do not doubt Gov. Kemp's rightwing conservative Republican credentials, and are NOT willing to vote against him, or even criticize him overmuch, just for dissing Trump, or rather going along with 45's megla-MAGA-mania.
Note that Brian K runs HIS state party AND government with a very firm grip. Which discourages opposition, even under Trumpian circumstances. And without a lot of yelling and screaming, on general model of Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly but carry a big stick".
Something obviously beyond the abilities and/or ken of his Florida neighbor, Ron DeSantis.
There's certainly a difference between right-wing conservativism and MAGAism and between both and Trump idolatry.
Plus standard centre-right and "our family's always voted Republican" traditional types.
Do you have any thoughts as to what proportion of the GOP vote comes into each category ?
Not any useful, methinks. HOWEVER, about a week ago NYT does based on their last NYC/Sienna College poll:
> Moderate Establishment (14% of GOPers) - examples Susan Collins, Charlie Baker, Chris Sununu pro-choice, pro- (or at least not anti-) woke, pro-immigration, pro-UKR and least pro-Trump
> Traditional Conservatives (26%) - Rick Perry, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio anti-choice, anti-woke, more pro-UKR than groups below, pro-Trump but not as much as . . .
> Right Wing (26%) Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Freedom Caucus anti-choice, anti-woke, anti-immigration, anti-UKR, very pro-Trump
> Blue Collar Populists (12%) - Rudy Giuliani [really mostly rustbelters] pro-choice, anti-immigration, very pro-Trump
> Libertarian Conservatives (14%) - Rand Paul pro- (or at least not anti-) woke, very pro-freedom, next least pro-Trump
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
Why . Le Pen has ditched her proposals for a referendum . The French aren’t leaving the EU no matter how desperate Leavers are to see some validation for their idiocy !
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
They will be lost amid the orgasmic joy of the closet fascists.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
Cheques?!?
In relation to a relatively small business which accepts card only, surely they DO have an alternative, if the payment system breaks down, of accepting cash? It's inconvenient but not impossible to switch pretty quickly to cash payment if your card payment system breaks down one day.
That's harder for a supermarket just because of the volume of money involved, although it seems quite possible they'd retain tills physically capable of storing cash, and may well also have back-up card payment systems and a dedicated data connection to the premises (business connectivity is very different to residential/small business broadband - you'll have a service level agreement with virtually 100% reliability guaranteed and a dedicated line).
I'm not saying supermarkets are right to ditch cash in terms of impact on a tiny minority of shoppers. But I'd suggest they probably have thought pretty carefully about the technical failure risks involved and the risks for a large supermarket are much, much lower than for a cafe in Euston.
I did once try to buy something in a Tesco whose card machines had stopped working, causing chaos.
But cash wouldn't have helped because it had somehow tripped the whole system.
The other point of course is I suspect (although I could be wrong) supermarkets pay much less on card charges due to their enormous bargaining power.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
Though in practice right wing populist soon get slapped in the face with the enormo-haddock of reality. Meloni in Italy on the subject of immigration for example:
A lot of his issues appear to be just brazen lying, why it's taken this long to take him to task is beyond me.
Or it would be, but that's the world we live in.
To be cynical, New York was more-or-less derelict and more-or-less bankrupt until Donald Trump started rebuilding the place, so there might have been an element of knowing he's a crook but he's *our* crook from the New York establishment who therefore averted their gaze because such was the price of rejuvenating their city.
The notion that "Donald Trump started rebuilding" New York is hogwash.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
If Le Pen ended up President of France, Meloni still PM of Italy, Merz, the more conservative leader of the CDU, does a deal with the AfD for power and the PP ended up in power with Vox then ironically the UK under either either Sunak or Starmer (most likely the latter after the next election) would be the most liberal major nation in western Europe.
On current polls it is not impossible Starmer could come to power and soon find his only major left of centre colleague in the western world is Albanese of Australia (with conservatives ahead in Canadian and NZ polls too and Trump neck and neck with Biden despite his charges)
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
Cheques?!?
In relation to a relatively small business which accepts card only, surely they DO have an alternative, if the payment system breaks down, of accepting cash? It's inconvenient but not impossible to switch pretty quickly to cash payment if your card payment system breaks down one day.
That's harder for a supermarket just because of the volume of money involved, although it seems quite possible they'd retain tills physically capable of storing cash, and may well also have back-up card payment systems and a dedicated data connection to the premises (business connectivity is very different to residential/small business broadband - you'll have a service level agreement with virtually 100% reliability guaranteed and a dedicated line).
I'm not saying supermarkets are right to ditch cash in terms of impact on a tiny minority of shoppers. But I'd suggest they probably have thought pretty carefully about the technical failure risks involved and the risks for a large supermarket are much, much lower than for a cafe in Euston.
This disappearance of cheques is not a bad thing but the disappearance of cheques really disadvantaged no one because to have a cheque you also had a bank account. The disappearance of cash shopping opportunites impacts on the 2.7 million people with no bank accounts which are mostly the poorest. Imagine you are poor cant shop in 90% of shops because they don't take cash...chances are you are going to have to a) travel to shop....or b) buy a pay as you go credit of some sort which is going to skim fees off you making what little you have go even less also in the case of a) those shops are going to so be charging premium prices with a captive audience
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
I'm not sure term limits on Macron make Le Pen MORE likely to win in 2027. He'll have been in office for a decade, making it quite likely to be a "change" election. Were he trying to eke out a third term, I actually think there would be more risk of Le Pen winning than if there was a new standard bearer. It's not like his approval ratings are brilliant.
That's not to say there is no chance of Le Pen winning. Just I don't think Macron is such a strong candidate that his absence from the 2027 contest makes it more likely.
If those were the actual results it would probably be a Union-Green-FDP coalition. Although if the Left don't make it into parliament then Union-Green might just get a majority between them, in which case that would be the most likely coalition. The other option would be Union-SPD.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Well I don't know and nor am I in any way knowledgeable about the whole issue - didn't the other NHS workers accept somewhat less than that but higher than what doctors are currently being offered ?
Personally if I was the government I would give a marginally increased pay offer but on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
Although I'm generally in favour of higher pay in current circumstances and oppose rentierism and the triple lock pension.
But could the doctors even accept 12% now ? It would make all the disruption caused by the strikes look unnecessary and caused by greed.
While the government cannot be blamed for the building materials used in some schools the timing of these school closures just before schools return next week seems a spectacular own goal
I started a Journalism Degree in 1995. I remember going out to a Sheffield primary school to write a story about the crumbling building. This was so decrepit that an endoskeleton had been installed - steel beams to hold up the roof. The school itself was still open despite signs that the steelwork was also in poor condition. A complete lack of money for new facilities.
So for all that PFI has its faults, it isn't as if public money was being spent. The Tory attitude being don't do PFI (unless we do it and make sure the Right People get to cash in), and don't spend public money either. The education of kids? Who cares?
And here we are again. Crumbling schools which needed replacing a decade ago still standing but literally falling down around the pupils.
There are lots of interesting points to be made about this, but that seems one of the more ill-judged and political ones.
Some questions: why was construction with this type of material stopped (apparently) in the 1990s? Was it that the problems with it were found and understood, or that a 'better' (i.e. cheaper) construction method was found? How do local authorities/the government keep track of the age and condition of their school (and hospital, and everything else...) buildings?
I started primary school in a building that was constructed in the early 1900s
In the 1970s a 'new' school was constructed to cater for a growing population, although the old school was retained.
Since then the 'new' school has been completely demolished and rebuilt.
The old school is still standing...
My eldest's primary school dates from that time. The caretaker showed me the roof structure - I mentioned I was interested, when he said that he reckoned that the beams were old oak from ship breaking.
That roof will be there when I am dead and buried for a 100 years, unless someone one fucks with it.
The rest of it are built from that brick the Victorians liked for public buildings. Walls a yard thick.
How long should a new public building be designed to last? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years? 100 years? 500 years?
The longer you want to 'guarantee' it to last, the more expensive it is - sometimes dramatically so. Has the extended life of your old Victorian school not undergone Trigger-syndrome, and did the people who built it really expect/want it to last that long? Were the walls a yard thick justified for the purpose they designed it for?
The key is understanding that all buildings require maintenance, and when they get near the end of their 'lives', that life can be extended, but at a larger cost. Often that cost is less than replacement, sometimes it is more. Often, sadly, the fact it needs replacing is ignored.
Well said.
The irony is that homes and buildings in this country "designed to last" can be magnitudes more expensive than wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas.
And the wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas can tend to be far better insulted than British housing too. Homes 'designed to last' to last centuries standards can have atrocious energy efficiency because that wasn't a priority when they were built. Replacing buildings every 30-50 years may seem less efficient but if the buildings while they're up are cheaper, easier to maintain, easily replaced and ratcheting higher standards as built to ever more modern standards - then why not do it?
If those were the actual results it would probably be a Union-Green-FDP coalition. Although if the Left don't make it into parliament then Union-Green might just get a majority between them, in which case that would be the most likely coalition. The other option would be Union-SPD.
Has Marz ruled out working with the AfD at federal level? As in other countries, we could have a Union minority Government supported by AfD without AfD ministers (probably what will happen in Spain).
It's also far from certain the FDP will make it back into the Bundestag leaving just the four parties with representation. The other side of this is if the Union goes into coalition with the SPD or Greens, the AfD will become the leading opposition party and the leader of an alternative Government.
Like Feijoo, Marz has to make a tricky political calculation.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Well I don't know and nor am I in any way knowledgeable about the whole issue - didn't the other NHS workers accept somewhat less than that but higher than what doctors are currently being offered ?
Personally if I was the government I would give a marginally increased pay offer but on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
Although I'm generally in favour of higher pay in current circumstances and oppose rentierism and the triple lock pension.
But could the doctors even accept 12% now ? It would make all the disruption caused by the strikes look unnecessary and caused by greed.
They accepted 12% but with a guarantee of CPI for the next 3 years in Scotland just a couple of weeks back.
Juniors got 2% last year, so a lot less than other staff, so could be spun as a bit of exceptional catch up.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
That is and should be up to each business to determine individually.
If a firm wants redundancy, and is prepared to pay extra for it, and have the security and risk associated with it, and risk their staff's lives over it, then that is their choice.
If a firm does not, then that is their choice too.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
I guess I'd like newspapers to report news. Odd, I know.
A coastal Suffolk town will be left bankless when Barclays closes its final branch there in November.
The Southwold Barclays, the last remaining branch in the seaside town, is one of the 15 branches of the bank which are due to close by the end of the year. Barclays said it took the decision after identifying just 17 people used the branch as their only source of banking.
Locals will be able to get cash from the local Post Office but the nearest branch of the bank will now be in Lowestoft, a 30-minute drive away.
Therese Coffey, MP for Suffolk Coastal, has promised to appeal to cash network operator LINK for a banking hub, a centre which provides cash services and access to different banks on each day of the week, Eastern Daily News reported.
Elsewhere in Suffolk, Christine Wheeler, Mayor of Beccles, said she intended to challenge the banking giant’s decision to close in the town, according to other local news reports.
Barclays has already announced more than 60 closures so far in 2023 and branches in central London, Hove and Portsmouth are also pencilled in for closure.
The bank has closed more than 614 branches since 2019, making up 27pc of the 2,277 outlets shuttered by the major banks in the time period.
Elsewhere residents in a village on the outskirts of the expanded Ulez area face being forced to pay £12.50 to go to their nearest Barclays, with a branch in the Buckinghamshire village of Chalfont St Peter no longer open from September.
At the same time the local village Post Office, which is now the only place offering cash services in the village, is due to close in September for a week-long refurbishment, leaving residents without cash access.
As a part time resident I can tell you that Adnams refuses to take cash and as they basically own Southwold the Southwold residents (or as we call them 2nd home owners as there are only about 3 residents left) don't use cash.
I'm off there this weekend.
Enjoy. What are your plans? Staying where? We might be up there as well. Might bump into you and not know it. Tip: The Roc Thurs and Fri evening outside is excellent. Closes at 7pm. I think this weekend is the last for the summer.
My parents are renting a place in Reydon, so I'm going to join them with the little 'un for the weekend. I don't think I've ever done The Roc - I'm more the sort of person who prefers the chippie nearby.
I'm playing it by ear: we'll probably spend loads of time on the beach if it's sunny, I'll also try to get a run or two in if I can, but Mrs j probably won't be with me, so it'll depend how my parents feel they can cope with a 9-year old...
Southwold is wonderful; I know the British coast fairly well, and Southwold, along with Shaldon in Devon, are probably my favourite resorts. Not the best scenery at either, but just great places to sit and relax.
I was in the supermarket just now and a couple of shop ladies were cursing the tills ("there's absolutely no change in any of them"), then had to set about refilling each till with metric tonnes of pointless scraps of metal.
I winced and wondered to myself, "how long will it be before we start seeing the first cashless supermarkets?"
It can't be too long. I mean, nobody was paying in cash, and yet the poor girls had to waste their time lugging around bits of near-worthless metal into heavy-duty machines almost nobody wants.
What a ludicrous waste of time and energy.
Still useful if you want to give a tip.
Yes that's the one and only thing I miss cash for. Pressing a cold coin into a warm palm. Or vice versa sometimes.
Interesting (and more convincing), thank you. I'm not sure it was formally a Cochrane review, but it observed the form so that's good.
There’s no magic to being a Cochrane review. The last thing Archie Cochrane would have wanted is for his name to become a special marker of quality.
I agree with you, and yet again it raises the thorny point of qualitative assessment: how does one assess the quality of a review? Given the rising number of systematic reviews and metastudies, we need a way to distinguish between the good, the bad, and the impostors.
IIUC (I may not!) a formal Cochrane review has to register, whereas an informal one may observe the form but not register. Happy to be contradicted on this if wrong.
I think there’s a limit to checklist assessments and, ultimately, you just need to have some subject knowledge and dig into the details of the methods of the review, as with any study. That said, standards like PRISMA are useful.
Cochrane reviews have to register and go through a particularly thorough procedure and are then published through Cochrane. I don’t think it’s meaningful to talk about an informal Cochrane review. It’s just not a Cochrane review. You can’t separate the Cochrane process from the Cochrane bureaucracy.
In the section "Methods" the study in question has this sentence "We used guidance published by PRISMA [10] and Cochrane [11] to guide our methodology", where [11] refers to the Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions.
So the question I'm asking is: did they register with Cochrane, or did they just use the methods? This isn't me being a dick (that comes for free ) but it illustrates the difficulty
We didn’t register with Cochrane. It wasn’t a Cochrane review. We used guidance published by Cochrane. Cochrane run reviews, but they also produce various resources for how to do good reviews, including a very detailed and helpful “handbook”. Those aren’t, so to speak, Cochrane methods. They’re just systematic review methods.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
Though in practice right wing populist soon get slapped in the face with the enormo-haddock of reality. Meloni in Italy on the subject of immigration for example:
And yet, Poland seems to have prevented population decline without resorting to mass immigration, and indeed there are hints it is increasing (even if you ignore the Ukrainian influx)
And Poland is marvelously free of some of the less desirable effect of mass immigration. eg they have zero Islamic terror, honour killings, cousin marriages, rape and grooming gangs, female genital mutilation, ghoettisation, creeping sharia law, burkas and niqabs, welfare dependency, de facto blasphemy laws, educational segregation. Which are undeniably negatives which come with the many serious positives of Islamic immigration such as a wider range of spices in supermarkets, interesting accents, and so forth
While the government cannot be blamed for the building materials used in some schools the timing of these school closures just before schools return next week seems a spectacular own goal
I started a Journalism Degree in 1995. I remember going out to a Sheffield primary school to write a story about the crumbling building. This was so decrepit that an endoskeleton had been installed - steel beams to hold up the roof. The school itself was still open despite signs that the steelwork was also in poor condition. A complete lack of money for new facilities.
So for all that PFI has its faults, it isn't as if public money was being spent. The Tory attitude being don't do PFI (unless we do it and make sure the Right People get to cash in), and don't spend public money either. The education of kids? Who cares?
And here we are again. Crumbling schools which needed replacing a decade ago still standing but literally falling down around the pupils.
There are lots of interesting points to be made about this, but that seems one of the more ill-judged and political ones.
Some questions: why was construction with this type of material stopped (apparently) in the 1990s? Was it that the problems with it were found and understood, or that a 'better' (i.e. cheaper) construction method was found? How do local authorities/the government keep track of the age and condition of their school (and hospital, and everything else...) buildings?
I started primary school in a building that was constructed in the early 1900s
In the 1970s a 'new' school was constructed to cater for a growing population, although the old school was retained.
Since then the 'new' school has been completely demolished and rebuilt.
The old school is still standing...
My eldest's primary school dates from that time. The caretaker showed me the roof structure - I mentioned I was interested, when he said that he reckoned that the beams were old oak from ship breaking.
That roof will be there when I am dead and buried for a 100 years, unless someone one fucks with it.
The rest of it are built from that brick the Victorians liked for public buildings. Walls a yard thick.
How long should a new public building be designed to last? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years? 100 years? 500 years?
The longer you want to 'guarantee' it to last, the more expensive it is - sometimes dramatically so. Has the extended life of your old Victorian school not undergone Trigger-syndrome, and did the people who built it really expect/want it to last that long? Were the walls a yard thick justified for the purpose they designed it for?
The key is understanding that all buildings require maintenance, and when they get near the end of their 'lives', that life can be extended, but at a larger cost. Often that cost is less than replacement, sometimes it is more. Often, sadly, the fact it needs replacing is ignored.
Well said.
The irony is that homes and buildings in this country "designed to last" can be magnitudes more expensive than wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas.
And the wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas can tend to be far better insulted than British housing too. Homes 'designed to last' to last centuries standards can have atrocious energy efficiency because that wasn't a priority when they were built. Replacing buildings every 30-50 years may seem less efficient but if the buildings while they're up are cheaper, easier to maintain, easily replaced and ratcheting higher standards as built to ever more modern standards - then why not do it?
I have heard that all those 1930s suburban semis were designed with an expected life of 75 years.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
I think a lot of people who voted for Macron in the second round were voting against Le Pen. They’ll continue to vote against Le Pen as long as the alternative is anyone vaguely rational.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
That is and should be up to each business to determine individually.
If a firm wants redundancy, and is prepared to pay extra for it, and have the security and risk associated with it, and risk their staff's lives over it, then that is their choice.
If a firm does not, then that is their choice too.
I conceal a £20 note in my Tilley hat just in case. I lost its predecessor on a train back in May and it's possible the lucky gent who snaffled it hasn't realised it's there.
"The British Tories are completely deluded. They do not understand why millions of ordinary people are utterly fed up with them and the state of Britain. And they do not understand why their electorate has been blown apart.
That’s the conclusion I reached after having dinner with a cabinet minister who told me how senior Tories think about one issue that will shape the next election.
The issue is immigration and the insight into how the country’s most senior Tories are thinking and feeling about it is remarkable."
Does anyone have a list of times that Goodwin did not think that immigration was the most pressing issue of the day?
Now, has the government embarrassed themselves over the small boats? Yes.
But the polling on this one is pretty clear: the Great British Public is less concerned about immigration that at pretty much any time since 2006.
I'm not sure if they are less concerned about it, or just more apathetic because they don't think any government will be serious about reducing numbers.
Stories like this are being repeated accross the country:
Nearly 170 university students have been told to find alternative accommodation after a block of flats was taken over by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
The HD1 studio flats in Huddersfield were due to become home to 168 students this academic year, according to the managing agent Prestige Student Living.
It wouldn't be a fun Thursday evening without a detailed analysis of two August opinion polls.
I'm not going that far - BMG's England sub sample is 46-27-11 while YouGov's is 46-25-10 so for all the difference in headline numbers, probably not that big a difference overall. The swing with BMG is 16% and with YouGov 17%.
Either way, it's close to or slightly worse than 1997 with 200 losses for the Conservatives (before tactical voting).
The BMG numbers are very close to those from the end of June - that was one of only two polls since last June to show a Labour lead below 15% and the other was Opinium in early August (both at 14 points).
Opinium has been lowest on Labour ratings (40 and 41 the last two polls) so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
The best thing to do is to retain a variety of ways of paying for things, so cards, cash, cheques, phones, bank payments. The worst thing to do is to have only one way, because if something goes wrong with that one way you don't have an alternative. The last time I was at Euston station one of the cafes had a handwritten notice saying "cash only" because their card payment machines must have broken down.
Cheques?!?
In relation to a relatively small business which accepts card only, surely they DO have an alternative, if the payment system breaks down, of accepting cash? It's inconvenient but not impossible to switch pretty quickly to cash payment if your card payment system breaks down one day.
That's harder for a supermarket just because of the volume of money involved, although it seems quite possible they'd retain tills physically capable of storing cash, and may well also have back-up card payment systems and a dedicated data connection to the premises (business connectivity is very different to residential/small business broadband - you'll have a service level agreement with virtually 100% reliability guaranteed and a dedicated line).
I'm not saying supermarkets are right to ditch cash in terms of impact on a tiny minority of shoppers. But I'd suggest they probably have thought pretty carefully about the technical failure risks involved and the risks for a large supermarket are much, much lower than for a cafe in Euston.
This disappearance of cheques is not a bad thing but the disappearance of cheques really disadvantaged no one because to have a cheque you also had a bank account. The disappearance of cash shopping opportunites impacts on the 2.7 million people with no bank accounts which are mostly the poorest. Imagine you are poor cant shop in 90% of shops because they don't take cash...chances are you are going to have to a) travel to shop....or b) buy a pay as you go credit of some sort which is going to skim fees off you making what little you have go even less also in the case of a) those shops are going to so be charging premium prices with a captive audience
If I might chip in, I suddenly became a lot more keen on preserving cash when I realised how banks felt able to close accounts based on a customer's opinion.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
I think a lot of people who voted for Macron in the second round were voting against Le Pen. They’ll continue to vote against Le Pen as long as the alternative is anyone vaguely rational.
It could easily be Le Pen v Mélenchon next time...
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
Yup. The Star tells us something significant in a way that The Sun probably doesn't any more.
Having said that, the UK is rubbish at wondering what's going on in our immediate neighbours. Not particularly in a Brexit way, either. It used to be the case (early 1970s) that there was a weekly "news from Europe" show in what's now the local news slot - in London, anyway. Now, you really have to make an effort to find out.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for bothConsultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Because then the junior doctors committee says “not a penny less than 30%”
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
I think a lot of people who voted for Macron in the second round were voting against Le Pen. They’ll continue to vote against Le Pen as long as the alternative is anyone vaguely rational.
It could easily be Le Pen v Mélenchon next time...
I would think that is the most likely scenario. Albeit, you have 3-4 parties in the 15-25% vote share area, so any two of Melanchon, Le Pen, LR and EM are conceivable. (And it's not utterly impossible that you could have MoDem or the Socialists or the Greens or even Zemmour's lot making it.)
If those were the actual results it would probably be a Union-Green-FDP coalition. Although if the Left don't make it into parliament then Union-Green might just get a majority between them, in which case that would be the most likely coalition. The other option would be Union-SPD.
Has Marz ruled out working with the AfD at federal level? As in other countries, we could have a Union minority Government supported by AfD without AfD ministers (probably what will happen in Spain).
It's also far from certain the FDP will make it back into the Bundestag leaving just the four parties with representation. The other side of this is if the Union goes into coalition with the SPD or Greens, the AfD will become the leading opposition party and the leader of an alternative Government.
Like Feijoo, Marz has to make a tricky political calculation.
Yes Merz has ruled it out, and not just at the federal level. Zero chance of a Union minority government with AfD support, or any kind of deal with the AfD (at least any time soon - who knows what might happen 10 or twenty years down the line.
Worth taking a look at the occasional polls with hypothetical scenarios like "CDU/CSU open to working with AfD" - I haven't got the link but seem to remember in July had CDU/CSU down in 3rd place on 16%.
I think Merz probably won't be the Union chancellor candidate come the election, both Söder (CSU) and alternatives from within the CDU poll better than Merz - and he certainly made his position worse by recently implying the CDU would somehow work with elected Afd mayors at local level (before having to clarify the next day that he meant nothing of the sort). Not unusual for someone other than the party leader to be a party's chancellor candidate - look at Scholz, for example.
It's also not up to Merz, as the CDU has rules against working with the AfD that can only be changed by the party not the leader.
Probably the situation is still quite different in Germany compared to Spain or other European countries where centre-right parties are, or are becoming, willing to work with far right or populist right parties.
While the government cannot be blamed for the building materials used in some schools the timing of these school closures just before schools return next week seems a spectacular own goal
I started a Journalism Degree in 1995. I remember going out to a Sheffield primary school to write a story about the crumbling building. This was so decrepit that an endoskeleton had been installed - steel beams to hold up the roof. The school itself was still open despite signs that the steelwork was also in poor condition. A complete lack of money for new facilities.
So for all that PFI has its faults, it isn't as if public money was being spent. The Tory attitude being don't do PFI (unless we do it and make sure the Right People get to cash in), and don't spend public money either. The education of kids? Who cares?
And here we are again. Crumbling schools which needed replacing a decade ago still standing but literally falling down around the pupils.
There are lots of interesting points to be made about this, but that seems one of the more ill-judged and political ones.
Some questions: why was construction with this type of material stopped (apparently) in the 1990s? Was it that the problems with it were found and understood, or that a 'better' (i.e. cheaper) construction method was found? How do local authorities/the government keep track of the age and condition of their school (and hospital, and everything else...) buildings?
I started primary school in a building that was constructed in the early 1900s
In the 1970s a 'new' school was constructed to cater for a growing population, although the old school was retained.
Since then the 'new' school has been completely demolished and rebuilt.
The old school is still standing...
My eldest's primary school dates from that time. The caretaker showed me the roof structure - I mentioned I was interested, when he said that he reckoned that the beams were old oak from ship breaking.
That roof will be there when I am dead and buried for a 100 years, unless someone one fucks with it.
The rest of it are built from that brick the Victorians liked for public buildings. Walls a yard thick.
How long should a new public building be designed to last? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years? 100 years? 500 years?
The longer you want to 'guarantee' it to last, the more expensive it is - sometimes dramatically so. Has the extended life of your old Victorian school not undergone Trigger-syndrome, and did the people who built it really expect/want it to last that long? Were the walls a yard thick justified for the purpose they designed it for?
The key is understanding that all buildings require maintenance, and when they get near the end of their 'lives', that life can be extended, but at a larger cost. Often that cost is less than replacement, sometimes it is more. Often, sadly, the fact it needs replacing is ignored.
Well said.
The irony is that homes and buildings in this country "designed to last" can be magnitudes more expensive than wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas.
And the wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas can tend to be far better insulted than British housing too. Homes 'designed to last' to last centuries standards can have atrocious energy efficiency because that wasn't a priority when they were built. Replacing buildings every 30-50 years may seem less efficient but if the buildings while they're up are cheaper, easier to maintain, easily replaced and ratcheting higher standards as built to ever more modern standards - then why not do it?
Ultimately some things are cultural. From a financial perspective, British people do not view property as a depreciating asset that needs money spent on it to maintain its value, but as a store of (and source of future) wealth.
The problems with RAAC have been known about in the local Government property industry for several months but I'm glad to see the Mail catching up - perhaps they've not yet heard we've landed on the Moon or the Beatles have split.
RAAC is an issue depending on where it is in a building - it was mainly used in roof construction. I know of one authority that found it in just one primary school but I suspect others may not be so fortunate. 104 schools sounds a lot but it's a drop in the proverbial. The remediation work has cost councils a lot of money and has eaten into (poor choice of words) capital money which was being used fo extensions and other improvements.
If those were the actual results it would probably be a Union-Green-FDP coalition. Although if the Left don't make it into parliament then Union-Green might just get a majority between them, in which case that would be the most likely coalition. The other option would be Union-SPD.
Has Marz ruled out working with the AfD at federal level? As in other countries, we could have a Union minority Government supported by AfD without AfD ministers (probably what will happen in Spain).
It's also far from certain the FDP will make it back into the Bundestag leaving just the four parties with representation. The other side of this is if the Union goes into coalition with the SPD or Greens, the AfD will become the leading opposition party and the leader of an alternative Government.
Like Feijoo, Marz has to make a tricky political calculation.
Yes Merz has ruled it out, and not just at the federal level. Zero chance of a Union minority government with AfD support, or any kind of deal with the AfD (at least any time soon - who knows what might happen 10 or twenty years down the line.
Worth taking a look at the occasional polls with hypothetical scenarios like "CDU/CSU open to working with AfD" - I haven't got the link but seem to remember in July had CDU/CSU down in 3rd place on 16%.
I think Merz probably won't be the Union chancellor candidate come the election, both Söder (CSU) and alternatives from within the CDU poll better than Merz - and he certainly made his position worse by recently implying the CDU would somehow work with elected Afd mayors at local level (before having to clarify the next day that he meant nothing of the sort). Not unusual for someone other than the party leader to be a party's chancellor candidate - look at Scholz, for example.
It's also not up to Merz, as the CDU has rules against working with the AfD that can only be changed by the party not the leader.
Probably the situation is still quite different in Germany compared to Spain or other European countries where centre-right parties are, or are becoming, willing to work with far right or populist right parties.
Thanks for the update - much appreciated.
I thought Soder was history after the last election campaign - it seems the CDU are more forgiving than other parties. The question then becomes SDP or Greens - the big mistake would be a Grand Coalition leaving the AfD alone on the opposition benches.
Interesting though VOX had a poor election having looked as though they would be a strong third. It may be when facing up to serious scrutiny, AfD discover their base isn't as strong as they thought.
The current Government has been a bruising experience - their net support down from 51% to 36%. The Greens have probably done best and I could see them working with Soder - as for the FDP, will Durr take over from Lindner before the next election?
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for bothConsultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Because then the junior doctors committee says “not a penny less than 30%”
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
Well, in Scotland the deal was done. Is England too wee poor or stupid not to manage the same?
Any substantially improved offer would go to a members vote.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for bothConsultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Because then the junior doctors committee says “not a penny less than 30%”
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
Well, in Scotland the deal was done. Is England too wee poor or stupid not to manage the same?
"The British Tories are completely deluded. They do not understand why millions of ordinary people are utterly fed up with them and the state of Britain. And they do not understand why their electorate has been blown apart.
That’s the conclusion I reached after having dinner with a cabinet minister who told me how senior Tories think about one issue that will shape the next election.
The issue is immigration and the insight into how the country’s most senior Tories are thinking and feeling about it is remarkable."
Does anyone have a list of times that Goodwin did not think that immigration was the most pressing issue of the day?
Now, has the government embarrassed themselves over the small boats? Yes.
But the polling on this one is pretty clear: the Great British Public is less concerned about immigration that at pretty much any time since 2006.
I'm not sure if they are less concerned about it, or just more apathetic because they don't think any government will be serious about reducing numbers.
Stories like this are being repeated accross the country:
Nearly 170 university students have been told to find alternative accommodation after a block of flats was taken over by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
The HD1 studio flats in Huddersfield were due to become home to 168 students this academic year, according to the managing agent Prestige Student Living.
Also, @rcs1000 is arguably wrong (I'm not sure what he means by "since 2006")
"Immigration" is now rising as an issue in the polling
"Concern about immigration is at its highest level since 2017 – particularly important to Conservative supporters, who rank it second"
FPT: Let me quote again: HYUFD said: "The very poor in the US ie the unemployed and those without health insurance are worse off than our poor as they have little welfare state, public housing or NHS to fall back on"
From Wikipedia, we can learn that there are about 85 million poor Americans who receive Medicaid, and that the total expenditure is about $600 billion a year. So, per capita, the US governments spend about $7,000 for each poor person, just from Medicaid. (Older poor people, who are eligible for Medicare, as well as Medicaid, receive even more.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid
So, HYUFD, approximately what does the UK spend on the NHS each year? Are there any other signficant expenditures that should be included? How does that compare to the US expenditure on Medicaid alone, total, and per capita?
(I will say, as I have before, that I am not a defender of the many US health care systems. But I think most criticisms of them could be better informed.
Pro tip: Anyone who says there is an American health care system either doesn't know what they are talking about, or is being sloppy. There are many health care systems here.)
Yes but if you are middle income and ineligible for Medicaid and unable to afford health insurance you are effectively without healthcare in the US. At least the NHS ensures everyone is guaranteed healthcare regardless of income.
Plus of course if you are unemployed in the US you can only claim time limited benefits for 6 months provided you have not contributed or foodstamps (if you are an able bodied male also time limited) and there is only limited public housing. Whereas in the UK there is non time limited universal credit and contributions based JSA and probably more public housing still per capita too.
So my point the very poorest are probably worse off in the US than here stands (and those unable to afford health insurance but ineligible for Medicaid). Even if you are far better off if a higher income earner in the US with generally much lower taxes and higher salaries
WE bow down to your expertise on Norteamericano medical economics, and exchange rates, and relative standards of living.
Not to mention your illusion that the NHS "guarantees" health care. Depends what health care ...
It wouldn't be a fun Thursday evening without a detailed analysis of two August opinion polls.
I'm not going that far - BMG's England sub sample is 46-27-11 while YouGov's is 46-25-10 so for all the difference in headline numbers, probably not that big a difference overall. The swing with BMG is 16% and with YouGov 17%.
Either way, it's close to or slightly worse than 1997 with 200 losses for the Conservatives (before tactical voting).
The BMG numbers are very close to those from the end of June - that was one of only two polls since last June to show a Labour lead below 15% and the other was Opinium in early August (both at 14 points).
Opinium has been lowest on Labour ratings (40 and 41 the last two polls) so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
I guess I'd like newspapers to report news. Odd, I know.
It's not really a newspaper though is it? Nor even pretending to be one. It's not a tabloid trying to cloak nonsense with a covering of seriousness, it's meant to be an entertaining joke.
If it had devolved from what it once was or was pretending to be something it wasn't I'd be more critical of it.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for bothConsultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Because then the junior doctors committee says “not a penny less than 30%”
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
Well, in Scotland the deal was done. Is England too wee poor or stupid not to manage the same?
Any substantially improved offer would go to a members vote.
Now now, Foxy, you know it only works the other way round. You're insulting "British" exceptionalism, which means nothing can possibly be learnt from foreigners (which, in this context, very much includes Scots and Welsh).
Till it suddenly happens in London, as if sprung from the brow of Pallas Athena, or rather Britannia.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
I guess I'd like newspapers to report news. Odd, I know.
It's not really a newspaper though is it? Nor even pretending to be one. It's not a tabloid trying to cloak nonsense with a covering of seriousness, it's meant to be an entertaining joke.
If it had devolved from what it once was or was pretending to be something it wasn't I'd be more critical of it.
I can think of another London newspaper whhich tried to get out of a sticky session with the regulator by claiming that what it had published was so obviously crap that nobody could take it seriously.
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
I think it's a great shame that we don't really ever translate the French press, and I'm sure that works both ways.
Sure - but how many people ever find that? The BBC should stick it in the mix of their newspapers coverage for example. (And cut out the Star!)
The Daily Star's front page is often the best of Fleet Street. Liz Truss and the lettuce, for instance, and Rishi as Prime Minister of the month (posted at the start of this thread).
I guess I'd like newspapers to report news. Odd, I know.
It's not really a newspaper though is it? Nor even pretending to be one. It's not a tabloid trying to cloak nonsense with a covering of seriousness, it's meant to be an entertaining joke.
If it had devolved from what it once was or was pretending to be something it wasn't I'd be more critical of it.
I can think of another London newspaper whhich tried to get out of a sticky session with the regulator by claiming that what it had published was so obviously crap that nobody could take it seriously.
The Star is surely on firmer ground with that line though.
A long but worthwhile read from the brilliant Jennifer Williams in the FT. I went to college in Oldham so know the town well. To read so many problems at a big high school is disheartening.
The Tories have absolutely broken the ability of so many families to get by, and also broken the budgets of the schools who are left to pick up the pieces.
Christ, that is a tough read, it left me in tears. The Tories have utterly broken this country, and unforgivably they have ensured that children, and especially poor children, have borne the brunt of it. I find it hard to control my anger at them sometimes.
Is this really the country we want? The society we believe to be just? I know PB Tories and their fellow travellers excuse almost everything, but is this what we have been reduced to? For what other benefit?
If we remove the (often) justified anger, then there's four simple questions which the politicans of all sides need to ask.
1) What are we currently spending money on? 2) What could we spend more money or or less on to make the changes which people want (and what are those changes)? 3) How can we increase the money to make the gap from 1 to 2?
Anything other than that is really just details.
The big one for me is thinking longer term.
Don't pay NHS staff at levels that mean we have a perma-shortage of staff and pay 3-5x that rate for agency staff to cover the ones who are left, off sick thru stress or striking.
Don't repair pot holes with the cheapest possible mix to keep this years budget low, when fixing it properly might be a third the cost over 10 years.
There are loads of similar examples where the govt ideology thinks it is (or it least claims it is) controlling the budget responsibly but are actually making things much more expensive by shifting costs down the line.
Borrowing and/or tax needs to go up for a few years, but over our lifetimes doing so will make public services better and cheaper. This should not be a matter of left or right, but common sense accounting.
"I'm willing to pay a little more tax so that we can have a lot better public services."
Now what are the likelihoods of:
This extra tax actually being higher than predicted.
The improvement in public services being lower than predicted.
We all know what the historic pattern has been so why should things change now ?
I don't think we are going to get the changes I would like to see. If I was in charge it is what I would do, and it would work.
The current batch of Tories are brainwashed by thinking controlling public finances is always the right thing to do regardless of the scenario.
Labour lack imagination and coherence, there is a small chance they are just hiding these away but I doubt it.
But we haven't been controlling public finances but rather living beyond the country's means to varying extents.
All we get is profligacy on buying votes and vanity projects with cuts elsewhere.
It happens under every government and will continue to do so.
Of course the government have been trying to control public finances, have you heard about all the pay strikes?
Govt completely unrealistic in its offer led to widespread strikes, loss of motivation in staff, more people leaving, very high agency pay and poor service levels.
And then govt ends up paying what could have been accepted six months earlier. It was all futile, in the name of controlling public spending, when all it really did is increase it.
But if the government had just accepted the initial pay demands it would have ended up paying even more and guaranteeing ever higher pay demands in future.
No. It doesn't lead to ever higher pay demands, you have just made that up. And of course they shouldn't have paid the initial demands, but something in the realms of reasonableness. You can't boast about raising wages for private sector workers, pay pensioners 10%+ and then offer 2% to public sectors and not expect a no. I don't understand why that is complicated.
So you think that if the government agreed to the doctors 35% pay demand it wouldn't lead to similar pay demands from the rest of the NHS workforce followed by the rest of the public sector ?
Of course it would and rightly so.
So what we get instead are the negotiations battles with each side trying to find what the other's minimum acceptance point.
Now overall I think the government did a reasonable job at that this year but then I'm a net taxpayer, not on public sector wages and a minimal user of NHS services.
Other people, with different perspectives, may have different views.
The BMA settled in Scotland for 12% and a guarantee of CPI for the next three years. I suspect the same would be acceptable in England too.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for bothConsultants and Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
Maybe its time to drop the 35% pay demand then.
Well, the BMA did in Scotland, why won't Barclay match it as an offer?
Because then the junior doctors committee says “not a penny less than 30%”
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
Well, in Scotland the deal was done. Is England too wee poor or stupid not to manage the same?
Any substantially improved offer would go to a members vote.
Scotland paid more to the doctors than England paid to the nurses. The JDC has been utterly uncooperative. There is currently no point in the government using its limited dry powder to bid against itself
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
Why . Le Pen has ditched her proposals for a referendum . The French aren’t leaving the EU no matter how desperate Leavers are to see some validation for their idiocy !
What more validation do they need?! Aren't the glories of the Truss premiership enough?
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
Why . Le Pen has ditched her proposals for a referendum . The French aren’t leaving the EU no matter how desperate Leavers are to see some validation for their idiocy !
What more validation do they need?! Aren't the glories of the Truss premiership enough?
@Foxy actually makes a good point about Meloni, even if I replied sardonically
Meloni has been forced to retreat, quite significantly, now she has been elected
I wonder if Le Pen will do the same if she wins? Tack to the centre right, from the hard right? (she is no longer in any sense "far right" like her dad)
Quite possibly. Tho the difference is she has pressure from her right, as well as her left. Zemmour gets few votes but he is an influential figure
It wouldn't be a fun Thursday evening without a detailed analysis of two August opinion polls.
I'm not going that far - BMG's England sub sample is 46-27-11 while YouGov's is 46-25-10 so for all the difference in headline numbers, probably not that big a difference overall. The swing with BMG is 16% and with YouGov 17%.
Either way, it's close to or slightly worse than 1997 with 200 losses for the Conservatives (before tactical voting).
The BMG numbers are very close to those from the end of June - that was one of only two polls since last June to show a Labour lead below 15% and the other was Opinium in early August (both at 14 points).
Opinium has been lowest on Labour ratings (40 and 41 the last two polls) so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?
“so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?”
No. The first time you see Labour sub 40 will be in the General Election exit poll.
It wouldn't be a fun Thursday evening without a detailed analysis of two August opinion polls.
I'm not going that far - BMG's England sub sample is 46-27-11 while YouGov's is 46-25-10 so for all the difference in headline numbers, probably not that big a difference overall. The swing with BMG is 16% and with YouGov 17%.
Either way, it's close to or slightly worse than 1997 with 200 losses for the Conservatives (before tactical voting).
The BMG numbers are very close to those from the end of June - that was one of only two polls since last June to show a Labour lead below 15% and the other was Opinium in early August (both at 14 points).
Opinium has been lowest on Labour ratings (40 and 41 the last two polls) so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?
“Vote conservatives”. As schools crumble
To be fair, that is less the fault of the Conservatives than gross negligence over many decades by a number of civil servants who are promoted far beyond their intellectual ability or administrative competence and yet continue to mess up with elan and complacency that would disgrace a fairly bright three year old.
The real problem is the existence and continued gross failure of the Department for Education, which is so utterly unfit for purpose that you would literally be better off hiring any random three lunatics and telling them to clean matters up.
However, it should be pointed out that the Conservatives have had 13 years to abolish the DFE, and not only have failed to do so but have put in place an agenda which considerably strengthens it and has led to its expansion by over 60%.
So, it's their own fault they are getting blamed for its failures.
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
I know, tell me! It's paradoxical
I think my editor wants me to somehow unearth a brilliant gem.... without even going there. Then go there
French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the two-term constitutional limit that means he must step down in 2027 as “damnable bullshit” in a meeting with party leaders yesterday.
Indeed, with Macron ineligible to be her opponent again Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the French Presidency in her third attempt at the run off stage
If Le Pen wins it will be hilarious to see the contortions of the Remoaners
Why . Le Pen has ditched her proposals for a referendum . The French aren’t leaving the EU no matter how desperate Leavers are to see some validation for their idiocy !
What more validation do they need?! Aren't the glories of the Truss premiership enough?
@Foxy actually makes a good point about Meloni, even if I replied sardonically
Meloni has been forced to retreat, quite significantly, now she has been elected
I wonder if Le Pen will do the same if she wins? Tack to the centre right, from the hard right? (she is no longer in any sense "far right" like her dad)
Quite possibly. Tho the difference is she has pressure from her right, as well as her left. Zemmour gets few votes but he is an influential figure
It's not only the left who get mugged by reality; the right does too. Within the various constraints of western Europe and the EU the area of what is possible in government is highly restricted by common moral sense, and by pre existing patterns of development.
Both left and right populism suffer from the defect that while each individual populist proposal (stop the boats, family values, tax the rich, massive pay for all, whatever) may even have some merit and certainly support, governments have to run entire states including all the contradictions and over simplifications inherent in the totality of populist positions.
(In the UK, it seems to me, that currently there is slightly more populist drivel from Tory MPs than from Labour ones.)
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
Leon needs to prepare carefully.
"William hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop. Then Miss Barton led him through the departments of the enormous store. By the time she had finished with him, William had acquired a well-, perhaps rather over-, furnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper with Santa Claus costume and a tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for whacking snakes. Only anxiety about time brought an end to his marketing. At the last moment he added a coil of rope and a sheet of tin; then he left under the baleful stare of General Cruttwell."
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
Leon needs to prepare carefully.
"William hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop. Then Miss Barton led him through the departments of the enormous store. By the time she had finished with him, William had acquired a well-, perhaps rather over-, furnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper with Santa Claus costume and a tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for whacking snakes. Only anxiety about time brought an end to his marketing. At the last moment he added a coil of rope and a sheet of tin; then he left under the baleful stare of General Cruttwell."
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
Leon needs to prepare carefully.
"William hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop. Then Miss Barton led him through the departments of the enormous store. By the time she had finished with him, William had acquired a well-, perhaps rather over-, furnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper with Santa Claus costume and a tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for whacking snakes. Only anxiety about time brought an end to his marketing. At the last moment he added a coil of rope and a sheet of tin; then he left under the baleful stare of General Cruttwell."
Scoop?
Yes, and a bonus gold star if you can say what the sticks were for.
While the government cannot be blamed for the building materials used in some schools the timing of these school closures just before schools return next week seems a spectacular own goal
I started a Journalism Degree in 1995. I remember going out to a Sheffield primary school to write a story about the crumbling building. This was so decrepit that an endoskeleton had been installed - steel beams to hold up the roof. The school itself was still open despite signs that the steelwork was also in poor condition. A complete lack of money for new facilities.
So for all that PFI has its faults, it isn't as if public money was being spent. The Tory attitude being don't do PFI (unless we do it and make sure the Right People get to cash in), and don't spend public money either. The education of kids? Who cares?
And here we are again. Crumbling schools which needed replacing a decade ago still standing but literally falling down around the pupils.
There are lots of interesting points to be made about this, but that seems one of the more ill-judged and political ones.
Some questions: why was construction with this type of material stopped (apparently) in the 1990s? Was it that the problems with it were found and understood, or that a 'better' (i.e. cheaper) construction method was found? How do local authorities/the government keep track of the age and condition of their school (and hospital, and everything else...) buildings?
I started primary school in a building that was constructed in the early 1900s
In the 1970s a 'new' school was constructed to cater for a growing population, although the old school was retained.
Since then the 'new' school has been completely demolished and rebuilt.
The old school is still standing...
My eldest's primary school dates from that time. The caretaker showed me the roof structure - I mentioned I was interested, when he said that he reckoned that the beams were old oak from ship breaking.
That roof will be there when I am dead and buried for a 100 years, unless someone one fucks with it.
The rest of it are built from that brick the Victorians liked for public buildings. Walls a yard thick.
How long should a new public building be designed to last? 20 years? 30 years? 50 years? 100 years? 500 years?
The longer you want to 'guarantee' it to last, the more expensive it is - sometimes dramatically so. Has the extended life of your old Victorian school not undergone Trigger-syndrome, and did the people who built it really expect/want it to last that long? Were the walls a yard thick justified for the purpose they designed it for?
The key is understanding that all buildings require maintenance, and when they get near the end of their 'lives', that life can be extended, but at a larger cost. Often that cost is less than replacement, sometimes it is more. Often, sadly, the fact it needs replacing is ignored.
Well said.
The irony is that homes and buildings in this country "designed to last" can be magnitudes more expensive than wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas.
And the wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas can tend to be far better insulted than British housing too. Homes 'designed to last' to last centuries standards can have atrocious energy efficiency because that wasn't a priority when they were built. Replacing buildings every 30-50 years may seem less efficient but if the buildings while they're up are cheaper, easier to maintain, easily replaced and ratcheting higher standards as built to ever more modern standards - then why not do it?
Ultimately some things are cultural. From a financial perspective, British people do not view property as a depreciating asset that needs money spent on it to maintain its value, but as a store of (and source of future) wealth.
Changing that is not going to happen easily.
It could happen if house prices fail to keep up with inflation over a long period. Not to difficult to see how that might actually happen over the next decade.
If those were the actual results it would probably be a Union-Green-FDP coalition. Although if the Left don't make it into parliament then Union-Green might just get a majority between them, in which case that would be the most likely coalition. The other option would be Union-SPD.
Probably but Merz is more likely to do a confidence and supply deal with the AfD than Merkel was.
If another Union-SPD deal then that would have been the government most of this century, can you imagine a coalition government led by Sunak and Starmer?
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
If we could advise, they wouldn't be 'undiscovered.'
Leon needs to prepare carefully.
"William hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop. Then Miss Barton led him through the departments of the enormous store. By the time she had finished with him, William had acquired a well-, perhaps rather over-, furnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper with Santa Claus costume and a tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for whacking snakes. Only anxiety about time brought an end to his marketing. At the last moment he added a coil of rope and a sheet of tin; then he left under the baleful stare of General Cruttwell."
Scoop?
Yes, and a bonus gold star if you can say what the sticks were for.
My memory is dimmed. were they for signalling or semaphore or something of that sort?
Comments
In London except for barbers you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere that takes a large amount of cash.
With Apple Pay I never need to carry a wallet and I know exactly what I am spending as I have a budgeting app on my phone.
The Juniors have voted 98% for another 6 months of strike again today. The BMA Juniors membership is up by 14 000 too. In Sept there is a combined strike day for both Consultants and
Juniors on the 20th. There is a second combined strike on 2nd to 4th October, during the Conservative Party conference.
May be time for Barclay to start to talk.
He was wearing a cat-flap
Isn't that a Spoonerism rather than pun?
They probably need to be invited into government to take the mystique away - but you can at least understand in some part why that draws uncomfortable historical parallels.
“Worse things happen at sea.”
Plus of course if you are unemployed in the US you can only claim time limited benefits for 6 months provided you have not contributed or foodstamps (if you are an able bodied male also time limited) and there is only limited public housing. Whereas in the UK there is non time limited universal credit and contributions based JSA and probably more public housing still per capita too.
So my point the very poorest are probably worse off in the US than here stands (and those unable to afford health insurance but ineligible for Medicaid). Even if you are far better off if a higher income earner in the US with generally much lower taxes and higher salaries
(Claire) Coutinho’s first cabinet role is a major promotion – she has only been a parliamentary under-secretary of state, the most junior ministerial role, so far in her career, and is the first of the 2019 intake to become a cabinet minister. This promotion may reflect her close relationship with the PM – she was Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS) when he was chancellor and served as his special adviser before being elected.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/rishi-sunaks-august-2023-mini-reshuffle
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/08/30/german-fined-for-swastikas-on-ukrainian-cars-resigns-spiegel/?swcfpc=1
In relation to a relatively small business which accepts card only, surely they DO have an alternative, if the payment system breaks down, of accepting cash? It's inconvenient but not impossible to switch pretty quickly to cash payment if your card payment system breaks down one day.
That's harder for a supermarket just because of the volume of money involved, although it seems quite possible they'd retain tills physically capable of storing cash, and may well also have back-up card payment systems and a dedicated data connection to the premises (business connectivity is very different to residential/small business broadband - you'll have a service level agreement with virtually 100% reliability guaranteed and a dedicated line).
I'm not saying supermarkets are right to ditch cash in terms of impact on a tiny minority of shoppers. But I'd suggest they probably have thought pretty carefully about the technical failure risks involved and the risks for a large supermarket are much, much lower than for a cafe in Euston.
> Moderate Establishment (14% of GOPers) - examples Susan Collins, Charlie Baker, Chris Sununu
pro-choice, pro- (or at least not anti-) woke, pro-immigration, pro-UKR and least pro-Trump
> Traditional Conservatives (26%) - Rick Perry, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio
anti-choice, anti-woke, more pro-UKR than groups below, pro-Trump but not as much as . . .
> Right Wing (26%) Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Freedom Caucus
anti-choice, anti-woke, anti-immigration, anti-UKR, very pro-Trump
> Blue Collar Populists (12%) - Rudy Giuliani [really mostly rustbelters]
pro-choice, anti-immigration, very pro-Trump
> Libertarian Conservatives (14%) - Rand Paul
pro- (or at least not anti-) woke, very pro-freedom, next least pro-Trump
> Newcomers (8%) Vivek Ramaswamy [or younger mostly]
pro-choice, anti-woke (but pro-freedom), pro-immigration, pro-Trump
But cash wouldn't have helped because it had somehow tripped the whole system.
The other point of course is I suspect (although I could be wrong) supermarkets pay much less on card charges due to their enormous bargaining power.
https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-far-right-leader-giorgia-meloni-migration/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter
(Sorry, meant as a reply for Fox Jr about Saturday arrangements!)
On current polls it is not impossible Starmer could come to power and soon find his only major left of centre colleague in the western world is Albanese of Australia (with conservatives ahead in Canadian and NZ polls too and Trump neck and neck with Biden despite his charges)
That's not to say there is no chance of Le Pen winning. Just I don't think Macron is such a strong candidate that his absence from the 2027 contest makes it more likely.
Personally if I was the government I would give a marginally increased pay offer but on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
Although I'm generally in favour of higher pay in current circumstances and oppose rentierism and the triple lock pension.
But could the doctors even accept 12% now ? It would make all the disruption caused by the strikes look unnecessary and caused by greed.
The irony is that homes and buildings in this country "designed to last" can be magnitudes more expensive than wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas.
And the wooden buildings thrown up quickly overseas can tend to be far better insulted than British housing too. Homes 'designed to last' to last centuries standards can have atrocious energy efficiency because that wasn't a priority when they were built. Replacing buildings every 30-50 years may seem less efficient but if the buildings while they're up are cheaper, easier to maintain, easily replaced and ratcheting higher standards as built to ever more modern standards - then why not do it?
It's also far from certain the FDP will make it back into the Bundestag leaving just the four parties with representation. The other side of this is if the Union goes into coalition with the SPD or Greens, the AfD will become the leading opposition party and the leader of an alternative Government.
Like Feijoo, Marz has to make a tricky political calculation.
Juniors got 2% last year, so a lot less than other staff, so could be spun as a bit of exceptional catch up.
Instead the strikes go on, and morale gets worse.
If a firm wants redundancy, and is prepared to pay extra for it, and have the security and risk associated with it, and risk their staff's lives over it, then that is their choice.
If a firm does not, then that is their choice too.
I'm playing it by ear: we'll probably spend loads of time on the beach if it's sunny, I'll also try to get a run or two in if I can, but Mrs j probably won't be with me, so it'll depend how my parents feel they can cope with a 9-year old...
Southwold is wonderful; I know the British coast fairly well, and Southwold, along with Shaldon in Devon, are probably my favourite resorts. Not the best scenery at either, but just great places to sit and relax.
Sadly she also now needs armed protection because of the threats she’s been getting
And Poland is marvelously free of some of the less desirable effect of mass immigration. eg they have zero Islamic terror, honour killings, cousin marriages, rape and grooming gangs, female genital mutilation, ghoettisation, creeping sharia law, burkas and niqabs, welfare dependency, de facto blasphemy laws, educational segregation. Which are undeniably negatives which come with the many serious positives of Islamic immigration such as a wider range of spices in supermarkets, interesting accents, and so forth
Stories like this are being repeated accross the country:
https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-08-31/students-told-to-find-new-homes-as-flats-given-to-asylum-seekers
Nearly 170 university students have been told to find alternative accommodation after a block of flats was taken over by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
The HD1 studio flats in Huddersfield were due to become home to 168 students this academic year, according to the managing agent Prestige Student Living.
It wouldn't be a fun Thursday evening without a detailed analysis of two August opinion polls.
I'm not going that far - BMG's England sub sample is 46-27-11 while YouGov's is 46-25-10 so for all the difference in headline numbers, probably not that big a difference overall. The swing with BMG is 16% and with YouGov 17%.
Either way, it's close to or slightly worse than 1997 with 200 losses for the Conservatives (before tactical voting).
The BMG numbers are very close to those from the end of June - that was one of only two polls since last June to show a Labour lead below 15% and the other was Opinium in early August (both at 14 points).
Opinium has been lowest on Labour ratings (40 and 41 the last two polls) so could we see the first sub 40 Labour poll rating since September 2022 in the poll this weekend?
Good evening, everyone.
Having said that, the UK is rubbish at wondering what's going on in our immediate neighbours. Not particularly in a Brexit way, either. It used to be the case (early 1970s) that there was a weekly "news from Europe" show in what's now the local news slot - in London, anyway. Now, you really have to make an effort to find out.
When someone is unreasonable and obdurate, like the doctors are being, there’s no landing zone for a deal
Worth taking a look at the occasional polls with hypothetical scenarios like "CDU/CSU open to working with AfD" - I haven't got the link but seem to remember in July had CDU/CSU down in 3rd place on 16%.
I think Merz probably won't be the Union chancellor candidate come the election, both Söder (CSU) and alternatives from within the CDU poll better than Merz - and he certainly made his position worse by recently implying the CDU would somehow work with elected Afd mayors at local level (before having to clarify the next day that he meant nothing of the sort). Not unusual for someone other than the party leader to be a party's chancellor candidate - look at Scholz, for example.
It's also not up to Merz, as the CDU has rules against working with the AfD that can only be changed by the party not the leader.
Probably the situation is still quite different in Germany compared to Spain or other European countries where centre-right parties are, or are becoming, willing to work with far right or populist right parties.
Changing that is not going to happen easily.
RAAC is an issue depending on where it is in a building - it was mainly used in roof construction. I know of one authority that found it in just one primary school but I suspect others may not be so fortunate. 104 schools sounds a lot but it's a drop in the proverbial. The remediation work has cost councils a lot of money and has eaten into (poor choice of words) capital money which was being used fo extensions and other improvements.
I thought Soder was history after the last election campaign - it seems the CDU are more forgiving than other parties. The question then becomes SDP or Greens - the big mistake would be a Grand Coalition leaving the AfD alone on the opposition benches.
Interesting though VOX had a poor election having looked as though they would be a strong third. It may be when facing up to serious scrutiny, AfD discover their base isn't as strong as they thought.
The current Government has been a bruising experience - their net support down from 51% to 36%. The Greens have probably done best and I could see them working with Soder - as for the FDP, will Durr take over from Lindner before the next election?
Any substantially improved offer would go to a members vote.
"Immigration" is now rising as an issue in the polling
"Concern about immigration is at its highest level since 2017 – particularly important to Conservative supporters, who rank it second"
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/public-importance-climate-change-and-environment-doubles-become-joint-third-biggest-issue-facing
Not to mention your illusion that the NHS "guarantees" health care. Depends what health care ...
If it had devolved from what it once was or was pretending to be something it wasn't I'd be more critical of it.
Till it suddenly happens in London, as if sprung from the brow of Pallas Athena, or rather Britannia.
Meloni has been forced to retreat, quite significantly, now she has been elected
I wonder if Le Pen will do the same if she wins? Tack to the centre right, from the hard right? (she is no longer in any sense "far right" like her dad)
Quite possibly. Tho the difference is she has pressure from her right, as well as her left. Zemmour gets few votes but he is an influential figure
No. The first time you see Labour sub 40 will be in the General Election exit poll.
The real problem is the existence and continued gross failure of the Department for Education, which is so utterly unfit for purpose that you would literally be better off hiring any random three lunatics and telling them to clean matters up.
However, it should be pointed out that the Conservatives have had 13 years to abolish the DFE, and not only have failed to do so but have put in place an agenda which considerably strengthens it and has led to its expansion by over 60%.
So, it's their own fault they are getting blamed for its failures.
I have been commissioned by the Gazette to go find the best "undiscovered" Cambodian islands
By definition, this is quite hard. I've not even been to the Cambodian coast. All I have been told is that "Sihanoukville is a f*cking toilet" and "try the pepper in Kampot" - well, derrr. I love Kampot pepper
But I've no idea about the islands. Where what when. Any suggestions welcome
I think my editor wants me to somehow unearth a brilliant gem.... without even going there. Then go there
Tricky
Both left and right populism suffer from the defect that while each individual populist proposal (stop the boats, family values, tax the rich, massive pay for all, whatever) may even have some merit and certainly support, governments have to run entire states including all the contradictions and over simplifications inherent in the totality of populist positions.
(In the UK, it seems to me, that currently there is slightly more populist drivel from Tory MPs than from Labour ones.)
"William hesitating between polo sticks and hockey sticks, chose six of each; they were removed to the workshop. Then Miss Barton led him through the departments of the enormous store. By the time she had finished with him, William had acquired a well-, perhaps rather over-, furnished tent, three months’ rations, a collapsible canoe, a jointed flagstaff and Union Jack, a hand-pump and sterilizing plant, an astrolabe, six suits of tropical linen and a sou’wester, a camp operating table and set of surgical instruments, a portable humidor, guaranteed to preserve cigars in condition in the Red Sea, and a Christmas hamper with Santa Claus costume and a tripod mistletoe stand, and a cane for whacking snakes. Only anxiety about time brought an end to his marketing. At the last moment he added a coil of rope and a sheet of tin; then he left under the baleful stare of General Cruttwell."
If another Union-SPD deal then that would have been the government most of this century, can you imagine a coalition government led by Sunak and Starmer?