"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London (probably better than any similar airport on the world - apart from Changi)
Luton is now really efficient and useful if you live in north London. Don’t expect oyster bars but it does the job
The airport on Foula is brilliant and has zero queues, or indeed buildings, because it is simply a grass strip next to plunging cliffs on the most remote island in the UK
Newquay is fun
I'll bow to your experience on Heathrow - I've not flown from there for nearly 20 years (to JFK, which really was bloody awful).
Being in Manchester I tend to fly from... Manchester. They have added a few better places to their food court (Pot Kettle Black is a nice local mini-chain) but the general experience is always beigely unpleasant.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
Wick. No queues to get on or off the plane, and great scenery.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London (probably better than any similar airport on the world - apart from Changi)
Luton is now really efficient and useful if you live in north London. Don’t expect oyster bars but it does the job
The airport on Foula is brilliant and has zero queues, or indeed buildings, because it is simply a grass strip next to plunging cliffs on the most remote island in the UK
Newquay is fun
I'll bow to your experience on Heathrow - I've not flown from there for nearly 20 years (to JFK, which really was bloody awful).
Being in Manchester I tend to fly from... Manchester. They have added a few better places to their food court (Pot Kettle Black is a nice local mini-chain) but the general experience is always beigely unpleasant.
It's changed hugely in that time, LHR is now by far the best airport to fly from in the UK (although I guess that's rather like saying 'the best built school in the UK')
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
East Midlands is fine, mostly because it's small and quiet. You used to be able to fly from East Midlands direct to Schiphol, which was quite a civilised way of connecting to the rest of the world.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
Agreed re Soton. Nice views of Hants and the Solent too as a bonus.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
The Arab League know Mo Salah wants to star in it as poster boy.
The day is young, Liverpool knew this was coming, and can get someone in, and will take that amount of money before the end of next week.
Liverpool always do their work under the media radar.
I'm not sure the Arab League is quite what you think it is, unless Mo Salah is a more accomplished diplomat than I'd given him credit for.
It’s a football league. And it’s in Arabia. It’s the Arab League, right? It’s a good phrase, one of those rolls off tongue like you’ve heard it before.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London (probably better than any similar airport on the world - apart from Changi)
Luton is now really efficient and useful if you live in north London. Don’t expect oyster bars but it does the job
The airport on Foula is brilliant and has zero queues, or indeed buildings, because it is simply a grass strip next to plunging cliffs on the most remote island in the UK
Newquay is fun
I reflected, wandering around T5 this week that if this airport with its transport links and facilities, short security queues and lack of long interminable corridors were in another capital I’d be extremely impressed. Because it’s Heathrow somehow I just take it for granted.
T3 not so much of course, though the security queues are still short by international standards. And T2 and 3 have too-long walks from the train.
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
Wick. No queues to get on or off the plane, and great scenery.
Ha ha, well done to Liverpool, for telling the Saudis where to put their £150m.
That is all.
What are Liverpool saying “no” to? Let’s be serious about this - Kvaratskhelia can easily end up at Liverpool if they can get £150M for Salah. And that would be a HUGE Salah upgrade.
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
Ha ha, well done to Liverpool, for telling the Saudis where to put their £150m.
That is all.
What are Liverpool saying “no” to? Let’s be serious about this - Kvaratskhelia can easily end up at Liverpool if they can get £150M for Salah. And that would be a HUGE Salah upgrade.
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
Cole Palmer also sounds like a autogen wunderkind from the glory days and Champ Man 2
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London (probably better than any similar airport on the world - apart from Changi)
Luton is now really efficient and useful if you live in north London. Don’t expect oyster bars but it does the job
The airport on Foula is brilliant and has zero queues, or indeed buildings, because it is simply a grass strip next to plunging cliffs on the most remote island in the UK
Newquay is fun
I reflected, wandering around T5 this week that if this airport with its transport links and facilities, short security queues and lack of long interminable corridors were in another capital I’d be extremely impressed. Because it’s Heathrow somehow I just take it for granted.
T3 not so much of course, though the security queues are still short by international standards. And T2 and 3 have too-long walks from the train.
LHR has flaws but every airport has flaws. Some of the most lauded have insanely long walks everywhere
And yes they’ve really got to grips with security queues and the like
Meanwhile, whenever anyone goes on about how good Schiphol is, show them this:
“Why one of Europe’s top airports has become a ‘crazy mess’”
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
I agree, one can’t make a big deal of GDP when it suits and then denigrate it when some revisions come along.
Most people are guilty of this. The thing is to recognise the unconscious bias.
GDP is an incredibly useful measure. It certainly doesn’t capture human well-being that well, as demonstrated by some of the surprisingly high figures in deeply troubled countries, but it enables long term comparison of economic policies and degrees of development.
Adjustments have been getting bigger abc bigger for years. In the UK they generally seem to go up, but then so do older historical data - so it’s possible the ONS might suddenly revise upwards 2018 and 19 data to make the performance since Covid look worse again.
I think best looked at over the long term, both gross and per capita, current rate USD and PPP, and in conjunction with median income, life expectancy, productivity per hour worked, cost of living and other measures.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
East Midlands is fine, mostly because it's small and quiet. You used to be able to fly from East Midlands direct to Schiphol, which was quite a civilised way of connecting to the rest of the world.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
The KLM network of small airports in the UK is indeed brilliant.
If Heathrow ever gets that third runway built, BA will be able to do the same, with a load of little Fokkers connecting the hub to everyone’s local small airport. Think how much car traffic that gets off the roads.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
It's one of those irregular verbs. I take a champagne breakfast, you drink in the morning, he guzzles.
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
Exactly so
Not really the point. The question is whether the newly revised numbers will allow Jeremy Hunt to open the government's cheque book before the election. And secondarily whether you got up too late for breakfast television and so missed the whole crumbling schools fiasco which is what normal people care about today.
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
I was surprised the earlier stat was as gloomy as it was. I also thought there'd be a post-Covid boom simply because of all the money everyone had hoarded during lockdown.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
It's one of those irregular verbs. I take a champagne breakfast, you drink in the morning, he guzzles.
To be honest, this kind of stuff reminds me of seeing Charles Kennedy in that state. A sad, sad waste of good man.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
It's one of those irregular verbs. I take a champagne breakfast, you drink in the morning, he guzzles.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
East Midlands is fine, mostly because it's small and quiet. You used to be able to fly from East Midlands direct to Schiphol, which was quite a civilised way of connecting to the rest of the world.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
The KLM network of small airports in the UK is indeed brilliant.
If Heathrow ever gets that third runway built, BA will be able to do the same, with a load of little Fokkers connecting the hub to everyone’s local small airport. Think how much car traffic that gets off the roads.
Fokker went out of business in 1997 and the third runway will never happen.
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
Those of us who have been questioning the official stats for the last couple of years based on our own data and calculations are feeling pretty smug today.
Honestly, the ONS isn't fit for purpose, this stuff has real world implications and the data feeds into forecasts which are now hilariously inaccurate for the UK. We're probably close to the top of the league for growth in developed nations but because the ONS fucked up the forecasts are all suggesting otherwise which significantly hurts our domestic investment profile and businesses pull back on the basis that the economy is not going to grow.
Again, just as with the NHS scandal and all the other ones the UK civil service and wider public sector is just not up to the job and there seem to be no consequences for the individuals who clearly fuck up time and again. They just move on to some other role, keep their lavish public sector pension and the nation pays the price for their incompetence.
The Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window. The money pot emptied far too early, and was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal have picked up. 4th choice, last second midfield signing, leaving their midfield still too easy to target and pass straight through.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
LHR is a fine airport. Superbly connected to central London (probably better than any similar airport on the world - apart from Changi)
Luton is now really efficient and useful if you live in north London. Don’t expect oyster bars but it does the job
The airport on Foula is brilliant and has zero queues, or indeed buildings, because it is simply a grass strip next to plunging cliffs on the most remote island in the UK
Newquay is fun
I reflected, wandering around T5 this week that if this airport with its transport links and facilities, short security queues and lack of long interminable corridors were in another capital I’d be extremely impressed. Because it’s Heathrow somehow I just take it for granted.
T3 not so much of course, though the security queues are still short by international standards. And T2 and 3 have too-long walks from the train.
LHR has flaws but every airport has flaws. Some of the most lauded have insanely long walks everywhere
And yes they’ve really got to grips with security queues and the like
Meanwhile, whenever anyone goes on about how good Schiphol is, show them this:
“Why one of Europe’s top airports has become a ‘crazy mess’”
Queues so bad they go outside the building, under tents
Schipol used to be my favourite airport by a mile. It is sad how bad it has got in recent years. Mind you I still don't experience any major queues there. It is just the whole arrangment of the airport and its facilities seem to have relly degenerated in the last 20 years.
The worst airport in Europe by a mile is still CDG. Poorly arranged, poorly signed, poorly managed and, worst of all, just dirty.
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
UK GDP is now, in fact, comfortably over its pre pandemic level and in line with peer nations and better than some. Not quite the Brexit basket-case that has been portrayed.
Excellent! An irrelevant metric (GDP) has gone up! The schools are falling down, the people are getting old, the children are badly educated, the town centres are crap, the houses are smaller and nothing works. But GDP has gone up. SO THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN.
If the Matrix came true and everybody was in pods, but the GDP of Zion went up, you'd be happy. If we imported slaves to do menial work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Daleks invaded and created Robomen to work and GDP went up, you'd be happy. If Nazi Germany invaded and literally enslaved the population and GDP went up, you'd be happy.
GDP measures the size of an economy. It does not measure the benefits to its people or even where the benefits are going. The Americans found out in Afghanistan that it's an inadequate metric but we are still nailed to it like it's meaningful.
I agree entirely that it makes no differene to the Tory prospects.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
Exactly so
Not really the point. The question is whether the newly revised numbers will allow Jeremy Hunt to open the government's cheque book before the election. And secondarily whether you got up too late for breakfast television and so missed the whole crumbling schools fiasco which is what normal people care about today.
Like @Richard_Tyndall I don’t think these gdp revisions will help the government in any serious way. They are doomed. Things like the schools WILL get the attention
It’s just amusing to watch the Remainer narrative fall on its face
Anyway let’s just be cheerful. This is good news. For once
I am tempted to take away the gold standard rating from the ONS.
I didn't know they had it. They've always been a bit substandard compare to really first class outfits like the US BLS. I suspect that being in Newport doesn't help with hiring and retaining good people, although the civil service salaries will go further there I suppose. One thing I would say is wait to see how big the revisions we see in other countries are. There were big challenges coming up with numbers in an economy so wholly transformed by the Covid shock and it may simply be that the ONS has been quicker to revisit their estimates.
Ha ha, well done to Liverpool, for telling the Saudis where to put their £150m.
That is all.
What are Liverpool saying “no” to? Let’s be serious about this - Kvaratskhelia can easily end up at Liverpool if they can get £150M for Salah. And that would be a HUGE Salah upgrade.
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
Cole Palmer also sounds like a autogen wunderkind from the glory days and Champ Man 2
Is that a video game?
I’m not into video games. Are there any erotic computer games?
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
I was surprised the earlier stat was as gloomy as it was. I also thought there'd be a post-Covid boom simply because of all the money everyone had hoarded during lockdown.
Presumably the Truss tendency in the IEA and Telegraph will also be reconsidering their narrative too. Britain was fine with steady managerial declinists in power after all.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
East Midlands is fine, mostly because it's small and quiet. You used to be able to fly from East Midlands direct to Schiphol, which was quite a civilised way of connecting to the rest of the world.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
The KLM network of small airports in the UK is indeed brilliant.
If Heathrow ever gets that third runway built, BA will be able to do the same, with a load of little Fokkers connecting the hub to everyone’s local small airport. Think how much car traffic that gets off the roads.
Fokker went out of business in 1997 and the third runway will never happen.
I know, but “Little Embraers” doesn’t have the same ring to it!
I am tempted to take away the gold standard rating from the ONS.
I think the ONS is still fine for certain metrics but with GDP its just laughable. Last month the monthly and quarterly reports didn't reconcile, the monthly data showed 0.9% YoY volume growth but the quarterly data showed 0.4% YoY volume growth. It's just shambolic to have two different YoY growth numbers, no one knows what to believe any more and this is just going to make it worse.
We've spent the better part of a year trying to get investors to go for series A and B investments in UK startups and they've all vee pulling back based on the economy not growing despite our suggestions that the official statistics are just wrong.
Hopefully this release will reassure them that our clients wont be facing the diabolical headwinds that the official statistics have been implying. It's hundreds of millions in financing that's just been frozen for months waiting for the economy to turn around but it turns out that the ONS just got it wrong and those VCs would probably have gone for it had the data been correct.
I thought under Labour's PFI schemes, loads of money was spent doing up schools, rebuilding infrastructure etc.,. So how come schools are now at risk of falling down because of dodgy and/or inadequate concrete?
AIUI the issue affects 1950s-90s buildings. Presumably Labour didn't rebuild schools that had just been built?
And if the Tories hadn't scrapped school rebuilding schemes in 2010 presumably more of these buildings would have come due for rebuilding over the subsequent decade?
Has to be said, incidentally, that the average build quality under BSF was so poor that many of the buildings put up just 15 years ago also now have very serious and costly maintenance problems. That has included structural collapses.
The truth is that we've spent 75 years building bad stuff cheaply and then wondered why it's not good or long lasting.
They weren't built cheaply (not from the taxpayers' perspective anyway) - developers made massive profits from New Labour's schools building and refurbishment programme. They abolished compulsory competitive tender and it was a disaster (unless you had shares in a building company).
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
It's one of those irregular verbs. I take a champagne breakfast, you drink in the morning, he guzzles.
To be honest, this kind of stuff reminds me of seeing Charles Kennedy in that state. A sad, sad waste of good man.
An old PB story (from me, so plus ca change) but I once remember being at a function where Charles Kennedy was due to speak. I happened to be outside at the moment he arrived with his SPADs.
He literally fell out of the car, and held onto his advisors and the side of the car to navigate to the pavement. Absolutely blind drunk, could barely put one foot in front of the other. They stood him up straight, handed him his brief, and assisted him through the front door.
He then went almost directly on stage and gave a hugely accomplished, polished, focused, and slick delivery of whatever it was he was saying, before marching out and back into the car, all in around 45mins.
Ha ha, well done to Liverpool, for telling the Saudis where to put their £150m.
That is all.
What are Liverpool saying “no” to? Let’s be serious about this - Kvaratskhelia can easily end up at Liverpool if they can get £150M for Salah. And that would be a HUGE Salah upgrade.
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
Cole Palmer also sounds like a autogen wunderkind from the glory days and Champ Man 2
Is that a video game?
I’m not into video games. Are there any erotic computer games?
"The Remain campaign in 2016 was premised on the notion that the UK had a great deal by not being part of the euro and Schengen. You won't be able to do this again. We will need to convince the electorate of the benefits of the entire acquis communautaire of the EU.
Good luck with this. The reason why we think this won't happen is not the British electorate. It is the fact that the EU supporters in the UK are mostly delusional about the EU."
I love Wolfgang and he is much better informed about the EU than almost everyone on either side of the Brexit debate in the UK - but he has certain biases including a disdain for German and EU institutions, as you'd expect from a deeply Anglophile German living in Oxford.
I thought under Labour's PFI schemes, loads of money was spent doing up schools, rebuilding infrastructure etc.,. So how come schools are now at risk of falling down because of dodgy and/or inadequate concrete?
AIUI the issue affects 1950s-90s buildings. Presumably Labour didn't rebuild schools that had just been built?
And if the Tories hadn't scrapped school rebuilding schemes in 2010 presumably more of these buildings would have come due for rebuilding over the subsequent decade?
Has to be said, incidentally, that the average build quality under BSF was so poor that many of the buildings put up just 15 years ago also now have very serious and costly maintenance problems. That has included structural collapses.
The truth is that we've spent 75 years building bad stuff cheaply and then wondered why it's not good or long lasting.
They weren't built cheaply (not from the taxpayers' perspective anyway) - developers made massive profits from New Labour's schools building and refurbishment programme. They abolished compulsory competitive tender and it was a disaster (unless you had shares in a building company).
The BSF scheme schools under Ed Balls were essentially built by bulldozing Kruggerands into the waiting pockets of PFI sharks - though in passing the schools themselves were pretty well built. The mean little coalition PSBP was thin gruel by contrast, though the contracts were much, much better negotiated (source - was CoG at a PSBP school).
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
East Midlands is fine, mostly because it's small and quiet. You used to be able to fly from East Midlands direct to Schiphol, which was quite a civilised way of connecting to the rest of the world.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
The KLM network of small airports in the UK is indeed brilliant.
If Heathrow ever gets that third runway built, BA will be able to do the same, with a load of little Fokkers connecting the hub to everyone’s local small airport. Think how much car traffic that gets off the roads.
Fokker went out of business in 1997 and the third runway will never happen.
I know, but “Little Embraers” doesn’t have the same ring to it!
Prigozhin's little Embraer had more of a boom than a ring.
The Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window. The money pot emptied far too early, and was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal have picked up. 4th choice, last second midfield signing, leaving their midfield still too easy to target and pass straight through.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
Follow on fact. When Palace fans then began chanting Eagles Eagles, arch enemies Brighton sarcastically responded with a reply of Seagulls, Seagulls. Hence their nickname. Previously, B+HA were the Dolphins.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
London City and Southampton my personal favourites. You can get from the door to the gate in 10 minutes most of the time.
Would quite like to visit the beach at Barra.
London City Airport is very easy, and it's true of a lot of small regional airports that it's all pretty convenient (if they are near to you of course - not much point flying from Exeter if you live in Norwich).
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
Same. I saw him in a Biz lounge at Heathrow guzzling champagne at about 9am
It's one of those irregular verbs. I take a champagne breakfast, you drink in the morning, he guzzles.
The Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window. The money pot emptied far too early, and was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal have picked up. 4th choice, last second midfield signing, leaving their midfield still too easy to target and pass straight through.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
Follow on fact. When Palace fans then began chanting Eagles Eagles, arch enemies Brighton sarcastically responded with a reply of Seagulls, Seagulls. Hence their nickname. Previously, B+HA were the Dolphins.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
@OnlyLivingBoy was defending the ONS and saying that the figures were consistent with each other.
Ha ha, well done to Liverpool, for telling the Saudis where to put their £150m.
That is all.
What are Liverpool saying “no” to? Let’s be serious about this - Kvaratskhelia can easily end up at Liverpool if they can get £150M for Salah. And that would be a HUGE Salah upgrade.
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
Cole Palmer also sounds like a autogen wunderkind from the glory days and Champ Man 2
Is that a video game?
I’m not into video games. Are there any erotic computer games?
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
After the success of small boats week and health week...
I'm assuming that this must be Education Week.
Where’s this schools story blown up from, and why now? Was there an actual incident, or simply an abundance of caution?
(I’ve been crazy on work this week, and now away for a weekend break).
A beam at a school not thought to be at risk collapsed over the Summer completely without warning. The actual issue has been known about for years since a roof collapse in Kent in 2018. Surveys have been ongoing since March. The schools affected now are the ones which have been assessed. A long way short of anywhere near all of them. The matter was important enough to have been debated in Parliament in June. So it hasn't just surprised everyone.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Mail, Express, Times and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by right-wing politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
@OnlyLivingBoy was defending the ONS and saying that the figures were consistent with each other.
I’m starting a new economic data agency.
The GDP figures will be generated by plotting the suicides in the Russian oligarchy for the period, on a map.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Mail, Express, Times and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by right-wing politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
At least you twig that remoners aren't fundamentally any different from Mail readers. i.e. Morons.
Yes. I reckon the Tory strategy ought to be to tell everyone not to believe the Lefties and Remoaners. Emphasise just how wonderful everything is under their wise and benevolent care, and how grateful we should all be to have such benign leadership. I think that should do the trick.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
Yes. I reckon the Tory strategy ought to be to tell everyone not to believe the Lefties and Remoaners. Emphasise just how wonderful everything is under their wise and benevolent care, and how grateful we should all be to have such benign leadership. I think that should do the trick.
Only if they add “you’ve never had it so good” through a gleaming smile.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
Yes, look at US v UK interest rate series and inflation series. US is in a much better economic position, even though there’s plenty of people betting against the S&P at the moment, and pandemic-deferred student loads restarting are about to blow up in Biden’s face.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Mail, Express, Times and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by right-wing politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
At least you twig that remoners aren't fundamentally any different from Mail readers. i.e. Morons.
I think people that want to rejoin the EU have as much right to make the argument as you do to call them wrong.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
It's surely close to sacking territory for the ONS brainboxes, they've managed to miss something akin to a year of economic growth.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
It's surely close to sacking territory for the ONS brainboxes, they've managed to miss something akin to a year of economic growth.
Yup, but nothing will change.
If they'd got it right the general chat around interest rates would probably be based on when the BoE fire the gun for monetary loosening and how quickly the Fed would also follow rather than now where the suggestion (incorrectly IMO) is that the BoE will have to hold rates high for the whole of 2024 while the Fed starts pushing rates down by mid 2023.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
The article they put out defending their prediction of a 4% impact from Brexit despite their data going against it used some very contorted logic.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
The article they put out defending their prediction of a 4% impact from Brexit despite their data going against it used some very contorted logic.
Particularly odd since it was only an average of other people's predictions anyway:
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
Estimates for investment were wildly understated too, at the time. It turns out that investment is now 8% above its pre-pandemic level, and in fact, grew very rapidly since the start of 2022.
One can't really judge the performance of the economy until about two years have passed.
The Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window. The money pot emptied far too early, and was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal have picked up. 4th choice, last second midfield signing, leaving their midfield still too easy to target and pass straight through.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
Follow on fact. When Palace fans then began chanting Eagles Eagles, arch enemies Brighton sarcastically responded with a reply of Seagulls, Seagulls. Hence their nickname. Previously, B+HA were the Dolphins.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
Probably not with a metric as totemic as GDP but I think the option of not measuring something is often underrated.
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
Those of us who have been questioning the official stats for the last couple of years based on our own data and calculations are feeling pretty smug today.
Honestly, the ONS isn't fit for purpose, this stuff has real world implications and the data feeds into forecasts which are now hilariously inaccurate for the UK. We're probably close to the top of the league for growth in developed nations but because the ONS fucked up the forecasts are all suggesting otherwise which significantly hurts our domestic investment profile and businesses pull back on the basis that the economy is not going to grow.
Again, just as with the NHS scandal and all the other ones the UK civil service and wider public sector is just not up to the job and there seem to be no consequences for the individuals who clearly fuck up time and again. They just move on to some other role, keep their lavish public sector pension and the nation pays the price for their incompetence.
The thing is, it happens over and over.
Back in 1985-89, the ONS was recording growth of 2.5-3% a year. It turned out to be 5% a year, with the result that interest rates remained too low, too long., leading to the repossession crisis of 1990-93.
Then remember Tim's glee that the economy "shrank" by 0.5% in Q4, 2010, only for this to be revised eventually, to growth of 0.2%.
Or the "triple dip" recession of 2012, that turned out to be ... growth of 1.5%.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
Estimates for investment were wildly understated too, at the time. It turns out that investment is now 8% above its pre-pandemic level, and in fact, grew very rapidly since the start of 2022.
One can't really judge the performance of the economy until about two years have passed.
Exactly, but people do play this stupid league table game with figures that are regularly revised, although is a whopper of a revision this time. It's really nowhere near as accurate as people think, and the ONS* has now turned probably tens of millions of words written about the UK economy to piffle.
* Excepting future wild swings of the ONS economic entrail reading.
The Manchester United owners have properly screwed the club in this window. The money pot emptied far too early, and was never enough to compete for the Man Utd type signings their peers, Bayern, Chelsea, Arsenal have picked up. 4th choice, last second midfield signing, leaving their midfield still too easy to target and pass straight through.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
Follow on fact. When Palace fans then began chanting Eagles Eagles, arch enemies Brighton sarcastically responded with a reply of Seagulls, Seagulls. Hence their nickname. Previously, B+HA were the Dolphins.
The Dolphins! That’s hysterical. 🤣
I think they changed their nickname on porpoise.
I suspect they weren’t having a whale of a time with it.
Was a bit disappointed at that article. It didn’t give a lot of extra info to what we already knew. At some point, probably after the Tories lose power, we’ll hear all the glorious, cringeworthy detail of how everything crumbled. Sadly this article wasn’t it.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
@OnlyLivingBoy was defending the ONS and saying that the figures were consistent with each other.
The most recent data were consistent, the issue iirc related to taking y/y comparisons where one series had made revisions to past quarters and the other hadn't. It's a wholly seperate issue to the set of indicative revisions published today. I'm not going to go out of my way to defend the ONS, as I've said repeatedly I don't think they're very good benchmarked against other statistics agencies, but I don't think the issue you identified previously was really a problem if you understand how the data are constructed and how to use them. And incidentally, it isn't that uncommon to publish data that don't align with each other, see for instance the US Bureau of Economic Analysis that publishes an expenditure based measure of nominal GDP and an income based measure (they refer to it as GDI) - these are measuring what should be the same thing but the numbers are currently wildly different - one says the economy is growing at 6% y/y, the other says 3%.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
Humberside is okay. Small, functional, services the flights up and down the east coast as well as feeding into Schipol for onward journeys to the rest of the planet.
This RAAC thing seems like a nightmare. I expect schools are just the tip of the iceberg, googling it seems social housing built in the 50s - 80s might be affected too, possibly some hospitals and a smattering of private buildings too ? Probably some asbestos nearby too...
Looks like the building equivalent of an aero bar.
I’m sure the government will get the problem fixed quickly, as they did with issues around unsafe fire cladding on tower blocks.
Was a bit disappointed at that article. It didn’t give a lot of extra info to what we already knew. At some point, probably after the Tories lose power, we’ll hear all the glorious, cringeworthy detail of how everything crumbled. Sadly this article wasn’t it.
But at the same time, it's still incredible to see it all written down in one place.
And a useful corrective to the "if only she had kept buggering on, it would have been fine" tendency. She was a dead PM walking from pretty early on.
Cue a thousand Remoaner think pieces about Germany, Italy and France as the “sick men of Europe”, as brave Brexit Britain forges ahead
Or not. Of course.
Just think of all the absolute BS published in the Economist, FT, Guardian and so on over the last few years, not to mention all the nonsense from think tanks and "charities" and regurgitated by leftie politicians and their simple-minded followers. Incredible really.
They need to do what the BoE has done and get a bunch of outsiders in to come and troubleshoot why everything is so fucked up. Once again, it turns out that had the correct data been given earlier the BoE would have had significant room to raise rates faster and earlier to bring inflation down much earlier.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
Probably not with a metric as totemic as GDP but I think the option of not measuring something is often underrated.
In reality central bankers understand very well the shortcomings of early vintage national account data and don't put a huge amount of weight on it in forming their judgements (the BOE actually have a method for adjusting what they see as a persistent downwards bias in the most recent ONS numbers). This does not of course mean they get their judgements right, I've been tearing my hair out over the BOE's ineptitude, but I wouldn't blame the GDP data for that.
Was a bit disappointed at that article. It didn’t give a lot of extra info to what we already knew. At some point, probably after the Tories lose power, we’ll hear all the glorious, cringeworthy detail of how everything crumbled. Sadly this article wasn’t it.
But at the same time, it's still incredible to see it all written down in one place.
And a useful corrective to the "if only she had kept buggering on, it would have been fine" tendency. She was a dead PM walking from pretty early on.
It's a vivid example of what happens when people are totally out of their depth: failed attempts to make things stick, to get the message over; an increasing need to put out fires and react rather than act; finally, hiding away, hoping everything will somehow be all right.
I've seen it a number of times with others in work situations and, being honest, I've been there myself many years ago when put in a role I was unsuited for and had no hope of delivering. It's not nice.
"I watched society collapse at Stansted Airport" => I was delayed at the airport
Doesn’t Stansted airport show us a good facsimile of what societal collapse looks like, even when there’s no delays?
More seriously, does no-one have travel insurance any more? If the flight’s delayed, get a taxi to an hotel and sort things out from there. I was delayed overnight last week, thankfully on a decent airline - and if they hadn’t done just that for us, we’d have done it ourselves.
Are there *any* halfway decent airports in this country (apart from Barra, obvs)? Vaguely remember East Midlands and George Best both being OK to fly out of.
Humberside is okay. Small, functional, services the flights up and down the east coast as well as feeding into Schipol for onward journeys to the rest of the planet.
This RAAC thing seems like a nightmare. I expect schools are just the tip of the iceberg, googling it seems social housing built in the 50s - 80s might be affected too, possibly some hospitals and a smattering of private buildings too ? Probably some asbestos nearby too...
Looks like the building equivalent of an aero bar.
I’m sure the government will get the problem fixed quickly, as they did with issues around unsafe fire cladding on tower blocks.
Seems the Welsh government have announced today that two hospitals are affected plus likely schools will be also
One last point, I think this revision also shows that real world experiences are a good measure of what's actually happening. For months and months people were saying that the country was far too busy with activity they could actually bloody see with their own eyes to match what the official data was saying. July is truly the first month where I've felt in the air that the economy is going to struggle badly. Until then you went out and wondered "what recession?" every single time. I mentioned on here loads and got dismissed but I think the data will eventually reflect that view.
Comments
Scotland's is 0000 BST as I understand it.
There seems to be no rhyme and reason whatsoever for those differences – all three nations are in Uefa.
Being in Manchester I tend to fly from... Manchester. They have added a few better places to their food court (Pot Kettle Black is a nice local mini-chain) but the general experience is always beigely unpleasant.
But it is the Remoaner clique that has spent the last few years moaning about Brexit and continually using our lower post Covid GDP growth as a key piece of evidence for how bad things are. If it turns out that that narrative was wrong, whatever its impact on today's politics, it does undermine one of their key arguments.
So this 'irrelevant metric' apparently only becomes irrelevant when it doesn't prove what people want it to prove.
London City is good. Small, again, and efficient. Because it's mostly a business airport you get less of the... multifarious splendour of humanity that you see at other airports.
I once saw a late era Alex Salmond getting an early morning flight at London City, absolutely reeking of booze and soaking it up with an epic breakfast that would bring a tear of pride to the eye of any proud Scot Nat.
“Simon French, chief economist at UK investment bank Panmure Gordon, said the revisions were “extraordinary”, adding: “The entire UK economic narrative — post-pandemic — has just been revised away.””
Thanks.
T3 not so much of course, though the security queues are still short by international standards. And T2 and 3 have too-long walks from the train.
It's one plane at a time. In and out in minutes....
Kvaratskhelia is a better player than Salah, is capable of achieving more than Salah has in his career. Because Kvaratskhelia is starting his top flight career earlier than Salah, Salah was a Chelsea reject, and 2nd choice signing for Liverpool after they failed to get their first choice. This is because scouts report Salah’s finishing is flawed (similar to what is thought of Fati who Brighton have signed) he misses too many chances. Salah succeeded at Liverpool because of the great midfield behind him, which no longer exists, and Liverpools pressing game, back in the day when it worked, suited him. It laid on chance after chance so it didn’t matter how many he missed.
Cole Palmer looks like one of Chelsea’s better signings. Caicedo is just old fashioned clogger, he won’t come good.
And yes they’ve really got to grips with security queues and the like
Meanwhile, whenever anyone goes on about how good Schiphol is, show them this:
“Why one of Europe’s top airports has become a ‘crazy mess’”
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/amsterdam-schiphol-airport-chaos/index.html
Queues so bad they go outside the building, under tents
Lab 45.1%
Con 27.1%
LD 10.7%
RefUK 6.9%
Green 4.9%
SNP 3.0%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Most people are guilty of this. The thing is to recognise the unconscious bias.
GDP is an incredibly useful measure. It certainly doesn’t capture human well-being that well, as demonstrated by some of the surprisingly high figures in deeply troubled countries, but it enables long term comparison of economic policies and degrees of development.
Adjustments have been getting bigger abc bigger for years. In the UK they generally seem to go up, but then so do older historical data - so it’s possible the ONS might suddenly revise upwards 2018 and 19 data to make the performance since Covid look worse again.
I think best looked at over the long term, both gross and per capita, current rate USD and PPP, and in conjunction with median income, life expectancy, productivity per hour worked, cost of living and other measures.
If Heathrow ever gets that third runway built, BA will be able to do the same, with a load of little Fokkers connecting the hub to everyone’s local small airport. Think how much car traffic that gets off the roads.
Honestly, the ONS isn't fit for purpose, this stuff has real world implications and the data feeds into forecasts which are now hilariously inaccurate for the UK. We're probably close to the top of the league for growth in developed nations but because the ONS fucked up the forecasts are all suggesting otherwise which significantly hurts our domestic investment profile and businesses pull back on the basis that the economy is not going to grow.
Again, just as with the NHS scandal and all the other ones the UK civil service and wider public sector is just not up to the job and there seem to be no consequences for the individuals who clearly fuck up time and again. They just move on to some other role, keep their lavish public sector pension and the nation pays the price for their incompetence.
Having blamed the Man Utd owners, it seemed odd letting the goalkeeper goal to Palace knowing their new overpriced keeper is going to miss so much of the key mid season, and the best person to understudy that period is now gone.
Also, the Man Utd incomings are all people the manager has previously worked with. But this is Man Utd, surely they should be fishing in a different pool than just the managers former players?
Talking of the Glaziers, fun football fact. Before they were Eagles, Crystal Palace were Glaziers. My girlfriends dad told me that when he took us to an Arsenal game.
The worst airport in Europe by a mile is still CDG. Poorly arranged, poorly signed, poorly managed and, worst of all, just dirty.
It’s just amusing to watch the Remainer narrative fall on its face
Anyway let’s just be cheerful. This is good news. For once
I’m not into video games. Are there any erotic computer games?
We've spent the better part of a year trying to get investors to go for series A and B investments in UK startups and they've all vee pulling back based on the economy not growing despite our suggestions that the official statistics are just wrong.
Hopefully this release will reassure them that our clients wont be facing the diabolical headwinds that the official statistics have been implying. It's hundreds of millions in financing that's just been frozen for months waiting for the economy to turn around but it turns out that the ONS just got it wrong and those VCs would probably have gone for it had the data been correct.
He literally fell out of the car, and held onto his advisors and the side of the car to navigate to the pavement. Absolutely blind drunk, could barely put one foot in front of the other. They stood him up straight, handed him his brief, and assisted him through the front door.
He then went almost directly on stage and gave a hugely accomplished, polished, focused, and slick delivery of whatever it was he was saying, before marching out and back into the car, all in around 45mins.
Talk about high functioning alcoholic.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/09/01/amber-de-botton-quits-rishi-sunak-director-of-comms/
When Palace fans then began chanting Eagles Eagles, arch enemies Brighton sarcastically responded with a reply of Seagulls, Seagulls.
Hence their nickname. Previously, B+HA were the Dolphins.
(I’ve been crazy on work this week, and now away for a weekend break).
Me from a few weeks ago.
"I think we're probably the only country in the world that would produce two competing GDP figures that are wildly different on the same day. Loads of people this morning asking the same question, "is it 0.4% or 0.9%?" I'm going with 0.4% but other people suggest the 0.9% is probably a more accurate reflection of where we are because the monthly index has proved itself better with fewer revisions than the quarterly number."
It's not as if people haven't been questioning the ONS data. We just weren't being listened to by the Treasury every time we sounded the alarm that the 2021 (and probably 2022) data was just wrong and didn't line up with any other indicators and indices.
Compare and contrast to, say, JFK and CDG, which I find to be two of the most depressing places in the world.
The actual issue has been known about for years since a roof collapse in Kent in 2018.
Surveys have been ongoing since March. The schools affected now are the ones which have been assessed.
A long way short of anywhere near all of them.
The matter was important enough to have been debated in Parliament in June. So it hasn't just surprised everyone.
The GDP figures will be generated by plotting the suicides in the Russian oligarchy for the period, on a map.
Who wants to invest?
Lord alone knows how some parents and carers will be able to mitigate that.
I reckon the Tory strategy ought to be to tell everyone not to believe the Lefties and Remoaners.
Emphasise just how wonderful everything is under their wise and benevolent care, and how grateful we should all be to have such benign leadership.
I think that should do the trick.
These fuck ups have got real world consequences despite people suggesting they haven't and it's all just nonsense statistics.
If they'd got it right the general chat around interest rates would probably be based on when the BoE fire the gun for monetary loosening and how quickly the Fed would also follow rather than now where the suggestion (incorrectly IMO) is that the BoE will have to hold rates high for the whole of 2024 while the Fed starts pushing rates down by mid 2023.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/01/shes-totally-lost-it-inside-story-of-the-unravelling-of-liz-trusss-premiership
Estimates for investment were wildly understated too, at the time. It turns out that investment is now 8% above its pre-pandemic level, and in fact, grew very rapidly since the start of 2022.
One can't really judge the performance of the economy until about two years have passed.
Back in 1985-89, the ONS was recording growth of 2.5-3% a year. It turned out to be 5% a year, with the result that interest rates remained too low, too long., leading to the repossession crisis of 1990-93.
Then remember Tim's glee that the economy "shrank" by 0.5% in Q4, 2010, only for this to be revised eventually, to growth of 0.2%.
Or the "triple dip" recession of 2012, that turned out to be ... growth of 1.5%.
* Excepting future wild swings of the ONS economic entrail reading.
And incidentally, it isn't that uncommon to publish data that don't align with each other, see for instance the US Bureau of Economic Analysis that publishes an expenditure based measure of nominal GDP and an income based measure (they refer to it as GDI) - these are measuring what should be the same thing but the numbers are currently wildly different - one says the economy is growing at 6% y/y, the other says 3%.
And a useful corrective to the "if only she had kept buggering on, it would have been fine" tendency. She was a dead PM walking from pretty early on.
I've seen it a number of times with others in work situations and, being honest, I've been there myself many years ago when put in a role I was unsuited for and had no hope of delivering. It's not nice.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66686099
Routine, or more significant?
(Er, five now.)
BBC News - Faulty concrete likely in Wales, says building expert
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66675364