Totally O/T. I went on the London Cable Car yesterday, it is fantastic and an absolute bargain at £12 return, its much better than the London Eye with amazing views.
Really? The views are pretty terrible IMHO, unless you enjoy a hawk's eye perspective over the Euromix concrete depot and assorted generic new build residential towers destined for Far East property portfolios. The whole thing is utterly pointless.
I thought is was fantatstic and I loved the views including watching three planes take off from London City Airport
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
What does the shock Dutch election result mean, soon after the shock Argentine result? I think it means voters blame incumbents for inflation. That’s bad for the Tories.
Inflation yes, but I think the real message is that the forces which drove such events as Trump and Brexit (starting all the way back with the 2008 crash) are still playing out.
In Europe the asylum seeker crisis is allowing haters of foreigners to promote their xenophobia. And the voter is buying it. Surely having decimated places just to the South of Europe since 9/11 such an influx was inevitable.
Our Rwanda policy is a joke, nonetheless the EU needs to get its act together over offshoring asylum claims from small boat people as much as we do.
The influx of economic migrants is another reason cutting international development aid is not as clever as a certain brand of Tory believe it to be.
None of that explains Argentina of course.
Pretty well, all Western countries have seen living standards grow (if at all), much more slowly since 2000, than was the norm, from c.1950. That results in instability.
Growth is not a given; in 2000 most people in the rich west felt OK so there is no rational ground for suddenly feeling that everyone is living on gruel if we weren't then.
The bigger instability in the west is another toxic mix. The birthrate within the long term population has plummeted, the west, exemplified by the UK, relies on ever increasing total populations through migration to sustain bits of the basic infrastructure and at the same time has to pretend it is hostile to its own policy for political reasons - hence the boat people nonsense when there isn't anyone to pick fruit and harvest leeks.
BTW why have we had 'tax cuts' when we are borrowing over £100bn annually?
People who are used to rapid growth factor in an assumption that the future will be much better. We’re also very far away from the reality of mass hardship that most people (apart from the wealthy) took for granted pre WWII. In 1939, the UK’s standard of living was about five times its level in 1350. Now, it’s about 20 times that. Back then, even though nobody starved, everyone knew that bad luck could result in very grim living conditions.
These days, much lesser levels of hardship can have a bigger psychological impact, because they are unexpected.
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
Or do archival research. Or deal with Spanish bureaucracy. Without that, I would have failed my Masters’.
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
Yeah no that’s a load of bollocks
Thank you for that very full answer. It is good to be both wiser and better informed.
There goes your NI cut. Backers of a spring election, take note.
The NI cut is much bigger than a 5% increase in energy prices.
Is it though? Annually perhaps but most people's energy bills will be highest in winter and trivial in summer because generally we have central heating and no air conditioning.
Should be a film: Win it like Corbyn (parallels in exceeding expectations and the likely prime minister - if Wilders can't cobble together a coalition - will be somewhat diminished by underperforming in the election)
Net migration 2022/3 is 672K, which would be a record but for an upward revision of the year before.
At what point does the public realise that a government policy of wanting simultaneously high and low net migration figures has a numerical flaw in it?
And that wasting political capital on much smaller numbers of boat people makes no sense.
Dear PB regulars - is there anyone here who has been talking about the Dutch election? Is there an old thread I should trawl? Has it had much attention on this site?
It was covered quite extensively on the previous thread last night.
Not really. I just went back to look. A few desultry comments
An anti Islam candidate won, so I guess people are trying to cobble together a reason it was bad for the right
There goes your NI cut. Backers of a spring election, take note.
The NI cut is much bigger than a 5% increase in energy prices.
Is it though? Annually perhaps but most people's energy bills will be highest in winter and trivial in summer because generally we have central heating and no air conditioning.
And most people pay a fixed monthly cost to smooth it out.
What does the shock Dutch election result mean, soon after the shock Argentine result? I think it means voters blame incumbents for inflation. That’s bad for the Tories.
Inflation yes, but I think the real message is that the forces which drove such events as Trump and Brexit (starting all the way back with the 2008 crash) are still playing out.
In Europe the asylum seeker crisis is allowing haters of foreigners to promote their xenophobia. And the voter is buying it. Surely having decimated places just to the South of Europe since 9/11 such an influx was inevitable.
Our Rwanda policy is a joke, nonetheless the EU needs to get its act together over offshoring asylum claims from small boat people as much as we do.
The influx of economic migrants is another reason cutting international development aid is not as clever as a certain brand of Tory believe it to be.
None of that explains Argentina of course.
Pretty well, all Western countries have seen living standards grow (if at all), much more slowly since 2000, than was the norm, from c.1950. That results in instability.
And that growth seems to have been distributed more unequally.
With too much being believed going to the top 1%.
This links with a suspicion that the top 1% are often above the laws and regulations the rest have to live by.
There goes your NI cut. Backers of a spring election, take note.
The NI cut is much bigger than a 5% increase in energy prices.
Is it though? Annually perhaps but most people's energy bills will be highest in winter and trivial in summer because generally we have central heating and no air conditioning.
And most people pay a fixed monthly cost to smooth it out.
The true costs aren't smooth though - so it probably is a slightly larger rise than 5%. Also one thing I really don't like is the fact the average energy usage was decreased so the current figures aren't precisely like for like with old ones.
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
Yeah no that’s a load of bollocks
Thank you for that very full answer. It is good to be both wiser and better informed.
What does the shock Dutch election result mean, soon after the shock Argentine result? I think it means voters blame incumbents for inflation. That’s bad for the Tories.
Inflation yes, but I think the real message is that the forces which drove such events as Trump and Brexit (starting all the way back with the 2008 crash) are still playing out.
In Europe the asylum seeker crisis is allowing haters of foreigners to promote their xenophobia. And the voter is buying it. Surely having decimated places just to the South of Europe since 9/11 such an influx was inevitable.
Our Rwanda policy is a joke, nonetheless the EU needs to get its act together over offshoring asylum claims from small boat people as much as we do.
The influx of economic migrants is another reason cutting international development aid is not as clever as a certain brand of Tory believe it to be.
None of that explains Argentina of course.
Pretty well, all Western countries have seen living standards grow (if at all), much more slowly since 2000, than was the norm, from c.1950. That results in instability.
And that growth seems to have been distributed more unequally.
With too much being believed going to the top 1%.
This links with a suspicion that the top 1% are often above the laws and regulations the rest have to live by.
“Suspicion” ?
With daily evidence that failure that kills people… gets you golden goodbye, a golden hello at the next job and a bigger salary?
And you get an interview in the weekend glossies about how hard it has all been.
What does the shock Dutch election result mean, soon after the shock Argentine result? I think it means voters blame incumbents for inflation. That’s bad for the Tories.
Inflation yes, but I think the real message is that the forces which drove such events as Trump and Brexit (starting all the way back with the 2008 crash) are still playing out.
In Europe the asylum seeker crisis is allowing haters of foreigners to promote their xenophobia. And the voter is buying it. Surely having decimated places just to the South of Europe since 9/11 such an influx was inevitable.
Our Rwanda policy is a joke, nonetheless the EU needs to get its act together over offshoring asylum claims from small boat people as much as we do.
The influx of economic migrants is another reason cutting international development aid is not as clever as a certain brand of Tory believe it to be.
None of that explains Argentina of course.
Pretty well, all Western countries have seen living standards grow (if at all), much more slowly since 2000, than was the norm, from c.1950. That results in instability.
And that growth seems to have been distributed more unequally.
With too much being believed going to the top 1%.
This links with a suspicion that the top 1% are often above the laws and regulations the rest have to live by.
“Suspicion” ?
With daily evidence that failure that kills people… gets you golden goodbye, a golden hello at the next job and a bigger salary?
And you get an interview in the weekend glossies about how hard it has all been.
Or a starstruck G7 PM interviewing a member of the 0.000001%
Let’s leave the world so we can bring down immigration.
Yep it's the only way to take back control. And it'll be the easiest deal ever! Look at our trade deficit. The World needs us more than we need the World. We hold all the cards.
Totally O/T. I went on the London Cable Car yesterday, it is fantastic and an absolute bargain at £12 return, its much better than the London Eye with amazing views.
Really? The views are pretty terrible IMHO, unless you enjoy a hawk's eye perspective over the Euromix concrete depot and assorted generic new build residential towers destined for Far East property portfolios. The whole thing is utterly pointless.
I thought is was fantatstic and I loved the views including watching three planes take off from London City Airport
Each to their own. I think the location of the London Eye means it offers far superior views. The cable car is too far east to offer good views of any of the legit London landmarks, and indeed just rams home how ugly and uninspiring much of the developments around docklands have been. It is properly high up though, and there's always something to be gained from that height. I actually quite enjoyed the view over the Euromix lorry park as I often see those trucks out and about on the roads of SE London and it was nice to soar over them, each truck reduced to tiny Tonka dimensions below.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. ... Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
Let’s leave the world so we can bring down immigration.
Yep it's the only way to take back control. And it'll be the easiest deal ever! Look at our trade deficit. The World needs us more than we need the World. We hold all the cards.
How much coverage will this get in the right wing media . Clearly they told their readers leave the EU to cut immigration and it’s been proven to be a total lie. One can only imagine the front pages if a Labour government was in charge .
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
Yeah no that’s a load of bollocks
Thank you for that very full answer. It is good to be both wiser and better informed.
To be fuller, there have been efforts to scan and digitise books at large scale. Either already with OCR or else that's something that current AIs should be fairly good at - where the scan is poor, choosing the word that most likely fits.
I don't know whether this has been done for the current LLMs, but it's certainly feasible.
Interesting anecdote of our broken public services yesterday.
Saw a guy who works 40 hours a week, minimum wage, supports his school age daughter and elderly disabled mother. The family get UC support for part of their rent.
This guy's mother had a suspected heart attack, he called an ambulance which arrived promptly, took her 20 miles to the nearest hospital (Salisbury). Reassured by paramedics, he, needing the money, went to work and asked paramedics to ask the hospital to call him when any news, or if and when his mother could be collected so he could drive in and pick her up.
Hospital decided the mother had not had a heart attack (although does need further tests) and packed her off home in a taxi. The guy arrived home has a taxi pulled up outside their flat with his mother, taxi driver demanding £60. The guy had no option but to pay so is now borrowing from friends until payday.
Let’s leave the world so we can bring down immigration.
Yep it's the only way to take back control. And it'll be the easiest deal ever! Look at our trade deficit. The World needs us more than we need the World. We hold all the cards.
I am still reeling from the knowledge that the Brexit vote was delivered by people who don't change their underwear daily. I mean, on one level this was wholly unsurprising, but on another level, wow. Certainly sheds some new light on some of the conversations we've had on here over the years.
In the next 5-10 years a Geert Wilders character will win power in the UK
Scenes reminiscent of those at the Remain camp when it dawned on the Leave were winning
“At the Hague headquarters of Ms Yesilgöz's VVD, supporters had been preparing to raise their glasses at the prospect of the Netherlands' first female prime minister.
But there was a collective gasp of disbelief when the exit polls flashed up on the screens and they huddled over their phones trying to understand what went wrong.”
There goes your NI cut. Backers of a spring election, take note.
The NI cut more than covers the energy increase (For most). Add in council tax, water, broadband however...
As the FT are reporting, this tax "cut" is a tax increase. We're going to be paying record amounts of tax - they have merely reduced how big that record will be.
Let’s leave the world so we can bring down immigration.
Yep it's the only way to take back control. And it'll be the easiest deal ever! Look at our trade deficit. The World needs us more than we need the World. We hold all the cards.
I am still reeling from the knowledge that the Brexit vote was delivered by people who don't change their underwear daily. I mean, on one level this was wholly unsurprising, but on another level, wow. Certainly sheds some new light on some of the conversations we've had on here over the years.
I change my pants every month whether I need to or not. It is part of my OCD.
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
In Dutch terms that's a lot of seats, given the PR voting system where 0.67% wins you a seat parliament.
Three quarters of those who voted voted for a different party. In a PR/many party system people are voting with a view to the total picture. Just as in the UK in the next election loads of people will vote Labour in some areas and LD in others in order to vote for the centrist option.
37 seats out of 150 is a lot in a PR system if, and only if, you have a good number of allies. If you don't, it is not a great result. As the Tories may find out in 2024 if they were to win as many as 300 seats out of 650.
By this morning's headlines, the claims in the Autumn Statement seem to have unravelled even quicker than usual. Shifting the narrative onto tax has just focussed attention back onto the impact of freezing tax thresholds and how taxes have shot up during this parliament and how disposable incomes have fallen, even after yesterday's overhyped announcements. Now the extra details are emerging, such as the plans for yet more future cuts in public spending now baked into the government's plans.
The way things are panning out, the government will be grateful for today's news of a 5% hike in energy bills and a 23% upward revision to last year's net inward migration figures, just to give it a chance to move the narrative rapidly away from talking further about tax.
Just to comment that the weekend 60 years ago was just extraordinary, and (I was 8, nearly 9) marked for me a sort of political awakening, simultaneously with the memorable start of a cultural phenomenon. Friday 22nd: JFK killed Saturday 23rd: 1st episode of Dr Who Sunday 24th: LHO killed.
There is no weekend of my childhood I recall so vividly. All elements of it are still avidly discussed.
Today was also the start of US Prohibition, in 1921.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
He probably just intended an amusing quip and it's the kind of thing that in a different context is not taken seriously. Trouble is that politicians tend to get on their high horse and take literally what was only meant as a cheeky witticism and then we all have to take it seriously and start grave,y discussing whether Stockton really is the pits, and if so, why....and it all gets very ponderous and dull.
They all do it. Remember Liam Byrne and the letter about all the money having gone? He was having a larf, but of course somebody saw the opportunity to make a little political capital and suddenly it was all very earnest.
Cleverley should own up (If he did say it...I can't hear it) and admit it was a whimsical aside, and apologise to those people of Stockton who were genuinely offended - both of them.
Whatever might be lacking in Stockton, I doubt it includes a sense of humour, or proportion.
This is true, and would the best approach. TBH I've always thought Cleverly seemed liked a decent bloke and it would probably go away pretty quickly if he just said, "It was a joke, I like a laugh and sometimes say the wrong thing. Sorry Stockton - I didn't mean it; luvyababes x."
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
What does the shock Dutch election result mean, soon after the shock Argentine result? I think it means voters blame incumbents for inflation. That’s bad for the Tories.
Inflation yes, but I think the real message is that the forces which drove such events as Trump and Brexit (starting all the way back with the 2008 crash) are still playing out.
In Europe the asylum seeker crisis is allowing haters of foreigners to promote their xenophobia. And the voter is buying it. Surely having decimated places just to the South of Europe since 9/11 such an influx was inevitable.
Our Rwanda policy is a joke, nonetheless the EU needs to get its act together over offshoring asylum claims from small boat people as much as we do.
The influx of economic migrants is another reason cutting international development aid is not as clever as a certain brand of Tory believe it to be.
None of that explains Argentina of course.
Pretty well, all Western countries have seen living standards grow (if at all), much more slowly since 2000, than was the norm, from c.1950. That results in instability.
Growth is not a given; in 2000 most people in the rich west felt OK so there is no rational ground for suddenly feeling that everyone is living on gruel if we weren't then.
The bigger instability in the west is another toxic mix. The birthrate within the long term population has plummeted, the west, exemplified by the UK, relies on ever increasing total populations through migration to sustain bits of the basic infrastructure and at the same time has to pretend it is hostile to its own policy for political reasons - hence the boat people nonsense when there isn't anyone to pick fruit and harvest leeks.
BTW why have we had 'tax cuts' when we are borrowing over £100bn annually?
We haven't, overall. Fiscal drag has effectively increased them more than they have been cut - while on the spending front, pensions have gone up with inflation, but government departments' budgets haven't.
Interesting anecdote of our broken public services yesterday.
Saw a guy who works 40 hours a week, minimum wage, supports his school age daughter and elderly disabled mother. The family get UC support for part of their rent.
This guy's mother had a suspected heart attack, he called an ambulance which arrived promptly, took her 20 miles to the nearest hospital (Salisbury). Reassured by paramedics, he, needing the money, went to work and asked paramedics to ask the hospital to call him when any news, or if and when his mother could be collected so he could drive in and pick her up.
Hospital decided the mother had not had a heart attack (although does need further tests) and packed her off home in a taxi. The guy arrived home has a taxi pulled up outside their flat with his mother, taxi driver demanding £60. The guy had no option but to pay so is now borrowing from friends until payday.
Life is rather shit for some people.
That's not a broken public service that's a public service which cannot be bothered to think of other people.
& then add on all the people keeping their heads down ...
And will be totally ignored by people complaining there aren't enough houses.
There are not enough houses, and also not enough nurses, care staff, doctors, teachers or builders. We could of course, have immigration, including builders and build more houses.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
Unless you believe Israel have amazing video AI generation, they have shown pretty clear evidence of large underground facility below the hospital via one shot drone flying down into them.
Now is it the mega command and control centre, that is still slightly for debate, but every day it seems like the Israelis show more.
The Sam Altman story keeps running. Now it looks like he’s coming back to OpenAI, and the board that fired him have themselves been fired.
The starting point for the whole mess appears to have been a disagreement (to put it mildly) among the engineers working on ChatGPT. It’s not clear if that disagreement is any closer to being resolved.
I did say that the only overriding explanation for the chaos was that OpenAI had got near to - or had achieved - something that could be described as AGI
A naive question but it interests me: AI as currently available to the public has obviously read much of what is available on the internet, though it hasn't, (SFAICS) read the words that have been live streamed verbally but not digitized in writing.
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
I think the models have read everything on the Internet, and I'd guess almost every academic journal is on there.
I think there's value in the extractive AI which pulls out sources and can handle a more complex query... an upgrade on Google. But the generative stuff just seems too prone to making up stuff, which is incredibly time wasting... takes ages to disprove a negative.
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. ... Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
According to figures obtained previously, it's believed the MoJ is spending £20,000-£25,000 a month on the prison's upkeep.
Over 10 years, it's cost taxpayers an estimated £2.5 million to £3 million.
The money - had it been spent elsewhere - could have paid for the annual salary of either 43 full time GPs, 90 nurses, or 100 teachers.
GPs must earn less than I'd been led to believe - that's about £7000/year/GP, isn't it at the top end £3M estimate? Even if you're naughty and use ten years' money for one year, it's still only £70k/GP which seems low unless you include trainees. On the £25k/month figure it's only £580/month per GP which also comes to ~£7000 annual salary.
ITV fans, please explain?
ETA: There are sources online that put the bottom end of GP salary at £70k, so it is arguable if you take 'the annual salary' to be only for one year, rather than the annual salary over the timescale discussed.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
In the next 5-10 years a Geert Wilders character will win power in the UK
Doubt it. We had Boris already taking the populist approach. Farage is the only obvious Wilders analogue and he would somehow have to become Tory leader - or else the Tories would have to split or collapse or similar. I don't see it.
Sam Freedman @Samfr · 36m Number of care worker visas went from 12,000 last year to 77,500 this year. Want to cut immigration? Fund social care properly.
In Dutch terms that's a lot of seats, given the PR voting system where 0.67% wins you a seat parliament.
Three quarters of those who voted voted for a different party. In a PR/many party system people are voting with a view to the total picture. Just as in the UK in the next election loads of people will vote Labour in some areas and LD in others in order to vote for the centrist option.
37 seats out of 150 is a lot in a PR system if, and only if, you have a good number of allies. If you don't, it is not a great result. As the Tories may find out in 2024 if they were to win as many as 300 seats out of 650.
Overall, it looks like the centre right/right have 97 seats out of 150, with six more going to Christian fundamentalists. That’s a gigantic defeat for the left.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
Emigration rise "mainly driven by those on initial study visas" according to ONS.
& then add on all the people keeping their heads down ...
And will be totally ignored by people complaining there aren't enough houses.
There are not enough houses, and also not enough nurses, care staff, doctors, teachers or builders. We could of course, have immigration, including builders and build more houses.
We've got immigration, record amounts of immigration.
And those immigrants themselves increase demand for housing and public services while placing more pressure on infrastructure and the environment.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of new existing people aren't working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb.
There's a close correlation and a plausible inference of causality between the rise in NHS long term waiting lists for major operations, the post Covid growth in the economically inactive population and the post Covid rise in disability benefit claims.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
I don't believe that is the claim at all (well outside the bad faith actors on twitter). It is that Israel built a basement floor to the hospital. What the Israelis have shown in the past day or two is not that, unless Israel was in the game of building tunnels made of hodge podge of materials.
In Dutch terms that's a lot of seats, given the PR voting system where 0.67% wins you a seat parliament.
Three quarters of those who voted voted for a different party. In a PR/many party system people are voting with a view to the total picture. Just as in the UK in the next election loads of people will vote Labour in some areas and LD in others in order to vote for the centrist option.
37 seats out of 150 is a lot in a PR system if, and only if, you have a good number of allies. If you don't, it is not a great result. As the Tories may find out in 2024 if they were to win as many as 300 seats out of 650.
Here is where the establishment gets results like this wrong. Similar to Brexit
Opponents of Wilders should take it as a wake up call that more people than ever are attracted to this kind of politics, rather than find solace by pointing out the electoral difficulty of forming a parliament
Same as Brexit; rather than realise that 52% of voters were desperately unhappy with the status quo, the establishment tried to pretend it hadn’t happened - ‘advisory’, ‘people’s vote’ and all that nonsense
It’s so similar to a relationship - if a partner has come very close to cheating, they’ve met up with someone but didn’t seal the deal, the fact that they haven’t quite done it isn’t a reason to pretend nothings happened - you should be thinking “what have I done to put them off me so much”
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
The video I saw showed tunnels of the same design / size of ones in Hamas propaganda videos.
The thing with saying a place is a shit hole and you'd never live there is that *somebody* has to live there. Now, we're not all ministers in a government that's been in power for 13 years, ripping the arse out of the taxpayer whilst delivering the square root of fuck all for the vast majority of the population, so we quite often don't really get much of a choice where we live. Maybe government MPs should have to live in the worst areas of their constituency, and send their kids to the shit hole schools as well?
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
There has been an improvement more recently, right now the number of inactive ex students and retired is up 300k on the level pre-Covid, but it was on a sustained downwards trend since the late 1990s and so we are only back at 2016 levels. The cause of the rise is increased long term sickness, up 500k and still increasing. I am guessing that is because the NHS is on its knees thanks to underfunding plus Covid. Get the NHS treating people again and we should see the downwards trend in inactivity resumed.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
It matters. Israel attacked the hospital under the cover that under the Geneva Conventions it was a viable military target. For that to be the case, the claims of the Hamas tunnel network had to be real. They appear to be real...
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. ... Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
According to figures obtained previously, it's believed the MoJ is spending £20,000-£25,000 a month on the prison's upkeep.
Over 10 years, it's cost taxpayers an estimated £2.5 million to £3 million.
The money - had it been spent elsewhere - could have paid for the annual salary of either 43 full time GPs, 90 nurses, or 100 teachers.
GPs must earn less than I'd been led to believe - that's about £7000/year/GP, isn't it at the top end £3M estimate? Even if you're naughty and use ten years' money for one year, it's still only £70k/GP which seems low unless you include trainees. On the £25k/month figure it's only £580/month per GP which also comes to ~£7000 annual salary.
ITV fans, please explain?
Salaried GPs earn about £80,000 in a range from £65-95,000 depending partly on location. No London weighting in Reading, I expect. GP partners earn, well, the sky's the limit, since they have a share in the profits of the GP partnership.
Interesting anecdote of our broken public services yesterday.
Saw a guy who works 40 hours a week, minimum wage, supports his school age daughter and elderly disabled mother. The family get UC support for part of their rent.
This guy's mother had a suspected heart attack, he called an ambulance which arrived promptly, took her 20 miles to the nearest hospital (Salisbury). Reassured by paramedics, he, needing the money, went to work and asked paramedics to ask the hospital to call him when any news, or if and when his mother could be collected so he could drive in and pick her up.
Hospital decided the mother had not had a heart attack (although does need further tests) and packed her off home in a taxi. The guy arrived home has a taxi pulled up outside their flat with his mother, taxi driver demanding £60. The guy had no option but to pay so is now borrowing from friends until payday.
Life is rather shit for some people.
Although thats not a great story, I wonder where the blame (if that is the right word) is here? I assume we don't expect an ambulance to bring her home. Presumably she was not able to say no to the taxi (elderly disabled etc). Presumably someone at the hospital followed the usual discharge route.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
Emigration rise "mainly driven by those on initial study visas" according to ONS.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
It just reinforces the point that we need to have a proper national conversation about fundamental reform of our public services. Not tinkering, not sticking plasters, not simply more cash - fundamental, root and branch reform.
The Labour Party is too timid at the moment to broach this subject (though it is starting to get there, perhaps, slightly, on housing). But if it wants to be in power long term it is going to have to square up to this issue.
Sam Freedman @Samfr · 36m Number of care worker visas went from 12,000 last year to 77,500 this year. Want to cut immigration? Fund social care properly.
The only way to fund social care is from property wealth.
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
The overseas student thing has a risk of going too far. Education is a political issue. We have a good number of very fine universities, a higher proportion than many countries. Ignoring PhD level for a moment, what are they for? Surely they should not exist in order to stop good UK applicants being there because high paying overseas students are there instead.
We will, of course, be told that this does not happen. But elite excellence is a finite resource, so it will.
In Dutch terms that's a lot of seats, given the PR voting system where 0.67% wins you a seat parliament.
Three quarters of those who voted voted for a different party. In a PR/many party system people are voting with a view to the total picture. Just as in the UK in the next election loads of people will vote Labour in some areas and LD in others in order to vote for the centrist option.
37 seats out of 150 is a lot in a PR system if, and only if, you have a good number of allies. If you don't, it is not a great result. As the Tories may find out in 2024 if they were to win as many as 300 seats out of 650.
Overall, it looks like the centre right/right have 97 seats out of 150, with six more going to Christian fundamentalists. That’s a gigantic defeat for the left.
Dutch Christian fundamentalists sound like a barrel of laughs...
Sam Freedman @Samfr · 36m Number of care worker visas went from 12,000 last year to 77,500 this year. Want to cut immigration? Fund social care properly.
The only way to fund social care is from property wealth.
… which cost TMay her majority and the reason why no-one in politics will touch the issue with a ten foot bargepole.
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
Question about counting temporary student visas - do they not count as emigrants when they leave then?
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
Interesting stuff.
If the 1.2 million who have arrived are earning more per hour than those who have left the country and those who have left the workforce since COVID-19, headline productivity figures might actually have increased as a result.
Indeed, if the 500,000 who left are people retiring to Spain or something, GDP per capita will have increased (relative to some counterfactual). And what is going on with real wages, and the distribution of those wage increases? Is it happening at the top or the bottom, or equally everywhere? Why is the labour market so tight even while we are importing 1.2 million a year?
I might try to answer these questions later but currently binging Grand Designs.
Without high levels of immigration there would be no growth. The Tories delivered Brexit and need to own it and explain why immigration is double that of when we were in the EU .
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
It matters. Israel attacked the hospital under the cover that under the Geneva Conventions it was a viable military target. For that to be the case, the claims of the Hamas tunnel network had to be real. They appear to be real...
Yes but it has also been suggested, not least by a former prime minister of Israel, that Israel put the tunnels there. That is not really the point though, since the test is their current use and not who cut the opening ribbon.
& then add on all the people keeping their heads down ...
And will be totally ignored by people complaining there aren't enough houses.
There are not enough houses, and also not enough nurses, care staff, doctors, teachers or builders. We could of course, have immigration, including builders and build more houses.
We've got immigration, record amounts of immigration.
And those immigrants themselves increase demand for housing and public services while placing more pressure on infrastructure and the environment.
Sure, but it is a very likely consequence of our demographics. There are still over 100k vacancies in the NHS, 150k in the care sector, 50k in the construction sector, about 1m in total.
Whatever govt is in charge, whatever people vote for I would expect us to get something like another 3-7m net migration over the next decade. I suggest we should plan for that now and build rather than listen to politicians who say they can stop it, but don't and then moan about them.
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
The overseas student thing has a risk of going too far. Education is a political issue. We have a good number of very fine universities, a higher proportion than many countries. Ignoring PhD level for a moment, what are they for? Surely they should not exist in order to stop good UK applicants being there because high paying overseas students are there instead.
We will, of course, be told that this does not happen. But elite excellence is a finite resource, so it will.
I remember having this discussion years ago on here particularly with the likes of Nick Palmer (who initially didn't believe it). The numbers of home students doing PhDs, particularly in STEM, has massively fallen over the years.
Something that is getting virtually no attention, the PhD stipend has not kept up with inflation / cost of living, so rather (in my day) it covered everything and you weren't rich, but never worried about money. Any teaching was really about career development or because you quite fancied a nice holiday somewhere.
Increasingly full time home PhDs have to have jobs just to continue to live.
This really isn't the conditions you want the best and brightest, nor does it encourage the best and the brightest to continue. In a knowledge economy if you aren't training many of your own, that leads again to requiring importation of talent (or companies not wanting to be here).
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
The vast majority of people leaving are those who arrived a couple of years before. Short term migrants, of which a big chunk (the biggest I think) are students. It’s ridiculous we include temporary students in our figures. Our universities are a huge export industry, a success story, and people who visit for a couple of years then leave are
Then there are the EU citizens returning home. There’s still a net outflow, and the gross leavers are obviously a bigger number.
The net outflow of British citizens is 84k. A significant number will be people with dual citizenship or married to a non-citizen, and I expect many of the rest are retired. No significant evidence of a brain drain, yet. Our world beating foreign language skills probably create some inertia there.
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
Question about counting temporary student visas - do they not count as emigrants when they leave then?
The national populist victory in the Netherlands comes after a surge of support for similar movements in Germany, France, Sweden, Austria ... Is crystal clear many voters utterly fed up of mass immigration, the refugee crisis, creeping influence of Islam, & out-of-touch elites imposing their luxury beliefs on everybody else 8:43 AM · Nov 23, 2023"
Most people seeing the news will assume 672,000 people came to the UK in small boats.
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
The overseas student thing has a risk of going too far. Education is a political issue. We have a good number of very fine universities, a higher proportion than many countries. Ignoring PhD level for a moment, what are they for? Surely they should not exist in order to stop good UK applicants being there because high paying overseas students are there instead.
We will, of course, be told that this does not happen. But elite excellence is a finite resource, so it will.
Speaking from the sector I do not believe that good UK applicants are being stopped from accessing University because of higher paying overseas students. Yes Uni's love the extra cash, but there are record numbers of Uni places available.
This year my course has an intake of 140 (the highest its been for 20 years). We have some overseas, but not as many as in the golden years of 15 years ago when the price differential was far greater.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
It matters a heck of a lot. If Hamas were not involved with the tunnels, then it makes what Israel did at the hospital look even worse than it did. If Hamas were not only involved, but actively using the tunnels, then it may pretty much excuse Israel's actions in the area around the hospital - and also put a heck of a lot of moral blame on Hamas.
It also would show Hamas to be truth-telling (about this), or a massive bunch of liars.
It may also cause some people to need to eat a vast amount of humble pie.
One of the dirty little secrets is that the number of economically inactive not including retired and students is up massively since before COVID. I think 700k more.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
The vast majority of people leaving are those who arrived a couple of years before. Short term migrants, of which a big chunk (the biggest I think) are students. It’s ridiculous we include temporary students in our figures. Our universities are a huge export industry, a success story, and people who visit for a couple of years then leave are
Then there are the EU citizens returning home. There’s still a net outflow, and the gross leavers are obviously a bigger number.
The net outflow of British citizens is 84k. A significant number will be people with dual citizenship or married to a non-citizen, and I expect many of the rest are retired. No significant evidence of a brain drain, yet. Our world beating foreign language skills probably create some inertia there.
Are temporary students only included in the immigration figures and not the emigration figures? If they are included in both you’d expect them to have only a minor impact on the net figure.
So where do PBers stand on (*) the al-Shifa tunnel controversy? Is Israel correct and Hamas did build the tunnels, and use them as a base? Or is it all manufactured Israeli propaganda?
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
By some accounts, Israel built the basement tunnels which have been repurposed and extended by Hamas. Tbh I'm not sure it really matters very much.
It matters. Israel attacked the hospital under the cover that under the Geneva Conventions it was a viable military target. For that to be the case, the claims of the Hamas tunnel network had to be real. They appear to be real...
Yes but it has also been suggested, not least by a former prime minister of Israel, that Israel put the tunnels there. That is not really the point though, since the test is their current use and not who cut the opening ribbon.
Loving the image of a bunch of terrorists cutting the ribbon on their secret underground command centre...
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. ... Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
According to figures obtained previously, it's believed the MoJ is spending £20,000-£25,000 a month on the prison's upkeep.
Over 10 years, it's cost taxpayers an estimated £2.5 million to £3 million.
The money - had it been spent elsewhere - could have paid for the annual salary of either 43 full time GPs, 90 nurses, or 100 teachers.
GPs must earn less than I'd been led to believe - that's about £7000/year/GP, isn't it at the top end £3M estimate? Even if you're naughty and use ten years' money for one year, it's still only £70k/GP which seems low unless you include trainees. On the £25k/month figure it's only £580/month per GP which also comes to ~£7000 annual salary.
ITV fans, please explain?
Salaried GPs earn about £80,000 in a range from £65-95,000 depending partly on location. No London weighting in Reading, I expect. GP partners earn, well, the sky's the limit, since they have a share in the profits of the GP partnership.
Yep, see my edit. I'm just upset because they didn't use the SI unit of government expenditure/waste, the hip replacement.
Comments
Vast amounts of modern knowledge, for good commercial reasons, isn't on the web - lots of academic books for example. Are we working toward a AGI that can read all those too?
Until it does, it is in the situation of the student who has read the summary but hasn't read the book. He can write an essay of sorts but comes apart when deeply questioned.
These days, much lesser levels of hardship can have a bigger psychological impact, because they are unexpected.
Ofgem increases maximum price suppliers can charge for a typical household’s annual gas and electricity use
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/nov/23/energy-bills-great-britain-rise-january-price-cap-ofgem
There goes your NI cut. Backers of a spring election, take note.
(parallels in exceeding expectations and the likely prime minister - if Wilders can't cobble together a coalition - will be somewhat diminished by underperforming in the election)
At what point does the public realise that a government policy of wanting simultaneously high and low net migration figures has a numerical flaw in it?
And that wasting political capital on much smaller numbers of boat people makes no sense.
With too much being believed going to the top 1%.
This links with a suspicion that the top 1% are often above the laws and regulations the rest have to live by.
Let’s leave the world so we can bring down immigration.
In the next 5-10 years a Geert Wilders character will win power in the UK
With daily evidence that failure that kills people… gets you golden goodbye, a golden hello at the next job and a bigger salary?
And you get an interview in the weekend glossies about how hard it has all been.
745k last year, 672k this year.
1.417M over the prior 2 years !
& then add on all the people keeping their heads down ...
A bit like the public never understand relative poverty, I bet most of the public don't even realise this.
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.
...
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Reading Gaol still empty after 10 years costing millions of pounds to maintain
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2023-11-22/theres-such-an-opportunity-here-prison-remains-empty-after-ten-years
I don't know whether this has been done for the current LLMs, but it's certainly feasible.
Saw a guy who works 40 hours a week, minimum wage, supports his school age daughter and elderly disabled mother. The family get UC support for part of their rent.
This guy's mother had a suspected heart attack, he called an ambulance which arrived promptly, took her 20 miles to the nearest hospital (Salisbury). Reassured by paramedics, he, needing the money, went to work and asked paramedics to ask the hospital to call him when any news, or if and when his mother could be collected so he could drive in and pick her up.
Hospital decided the mother had not had a heart attack (although does need further tests) and packed her off home in a taxi. The guy arrived home has a taxi pulled up outside their flat with his mother, taxi driver demanding £60. The guy had no option but to pay so is now borrowing from friends until payday.
Life is rather shit for some people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001sqkd/amol-rajan-interviews-ronnie-osullivan
“At the Hague headquarters of Ms Yesilgöz's VVD, supporters had been preparing to raise their glasses at the prospect of the Netherlands' first female prime minister.
But there was a collective gasp of disbelief when the exit polls flashed up on the screens and they huddled over their phones trying to understand what went wrong.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67504272
Interesting that there’s still net emigration of EU nationals (10k) and British citizens (84k). So the Brexit hangover continues with our neighbours (or simply the fact our salaries aren’t competitive).
The number could be magically cut overnight simply by excluding temporary student visas from the figures, like many countries do. Those were about 600k, of which around 20% then extended (and became more long term migrants).
37 seats out of 150 is a lot in a PR system if, and only if, you have a good number of allies. If you don't, it is not a great result. As the Tories may find out in 2024 if they were to win as many as 300 seats out of 650.
Plenty on the BBC to that effect eg.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67505811
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67484100
And Reform UK TV is joining in in having a go.
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/autumn-statement-tax-cuts-fiscal-drag-jeremy-hunt
The way things are panning out, the government will be grateful for today's news of a 5% hike in energy bills and a 23% upward revision to last year's net inward migration figures, just to give it a chance to move the narrative rapidly away from talking further about tax.
So basically we have imported millions of new people, large number of existing people aren't now working, but GDP is hardly growing, productivity has been crap since 2008.
That is a ticking time bomb. Taxes just have to keep rising to support pubic services for a rapidly expanding population....easy to get into a death spiral with such a scenario.
Would also be interesting to know what are the makeup of the 500k people leaving a year. Are we suffering a significant brain drain? I would hedge a bet we are. We get the occasional media focus on some doctors going to Australia for the sun, sea and snakes, but what about wider economy?
Easy.
Seems quite an important question to sort out.
(*) Hopefully not 'in'.
Fiscal drag has effectively increased them more than they have been cut - while on the spending front, pensions have gone up with inflation, but government departments' budgets haven't.
Now is it the mega command and control centre, that is still slightly for debate, but every day it seems like the Israelis show more.
I think there's value in the extractive AI which pulls out sources and can handle a more complex query... an upgrade on Google. But the generative stuff just seems too prone to making up stuff, which is incredibly time wasting... takes ages to disprove a negative.
Over 10 years, it's cost taxpayers an estimated £2.5 million to £3 million.
The money - had it been spent elsewhere - could have paid for the annual salary of either 43 full time GPs, 90 nurses, or 100 teachers.
GPs must earn less than I'd been led to believe - that's about £7000/year/GP, isn't it at the top end £3M estimate? Even if you're naughty and use ten years' money for one year, it's still only £70k/GP which seems low unless you include trainees. On the £25k/month figure it's only £580/month per GP which also comes to ~£7000 annual salary.
ITV fans, please explain?
ETA: There are sources online that put the bottom end of GP salary at £70k, so it is arguable if you take 'the annual salary' to be only for one year, rather than the annual salary over the timescale discussed.
FPTP is part of it, but not all of it.
@Samfr
·
36m
Number of care worker visas went from 12,000 last year to 77,500 this year. Want to cut immigration? Fund social care properly.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023
And those immigrants themselves increase demand for housing and public services while placing more pressure on infrastructure and the environment.
Opponents of Wilders should take it as a wake up call that more people than ever are attracted to this kind of politics, rather than find solace by pointing out the electoral difficulty of forming a
parliament
Same as Brexit; rather than realise that 52% of voters were desperately unhappy with the status quo, the establishment tried to pretend it hadn’t happened - ‘advisory’, ‘people’s vote’ and all that nonsense
It’s so similar to a relationship - if a partner has come very close to cheating, they’ve met up with someone but didn’t seal the deal, the fact that they haven’t quite done it isn’t a reason to pretend nothings happened - you should be thinking “what have I done to put them off me so much”
Maybe government MPs should have to live in the worst areas of their constituency, and send their kids to the shit hole schools as well?
British nationals accounted for 93,000 (18%).
The Labour Party is too timid at the moment to broach this subject (though it is starting to get there, perhaps, slightly, on housing). But if it wants to be in power long term it is going to have to square up to this issue.
We will, of course, be told that this does not happen. But elite excellence is a finite resource, so it will.
If the 1.2 million who have arrived are earning more per hour than those who have left the country and those who have left the workforce since COVID-19, headline productivity figures might actually have increased as a result.
Indeed, if the 500,000 who left are people retiring to Spain or something, GDP per capita will have increased (relative to some counterfactual). And what is going on with real wages, and the distribution of those wage increases? Is it happening at the top or the bottom, or equally everywhere? Why is the labour market so tight even while we are importing 1.2 million a year?
I might try to answer these questions later but currently binging Grand Designs.
Whatever govt is in charge, whatever people vote for I would expect us to get something like another 3-7m net migration over the next decade. I suggest we should plan for that now and build rather than listen to politicians who say they can stop it, but don't and then moan about them.
Something that is getting virtually no attention, the PhD stipend has not kept up with inflation / cost of living, so rather (in my day) it covered everything and you weren't rich, but never worried about money. Any teaching was really about career development or because you quite fancied a nice holiday somewhere.
Increasingly full time home PhDs have to have jobs just to continue to live.
This really isn't the conditions you want the best and brightest, nor does it encourage the best and the brightest to continue. In a knowledge economy if you aren't training many of your own, that leads again to requiring importation of talent (or companies not wanting to be here).
Then there are the EU citizens returning home. There’s still a net outflow, and the gross leavers are obviously a bigger number.
The net outflow of British citizens is 84k. A significant number will be people with dual citizenship or married to a non-citizen, and I expect many of the rest are retired. No significant evidence of a brain drain, yet. Our world beating foreign language skills probably create some inertia there.
@GoodwinMJ
The national populist victory in the Netherlands comes after a surge of support for similar movements in Germany, France, Sweden, Austria ... Is crystal clear many voters utterly fed up of mass immigration, the refugee crisis, creeping influence of Islam, & out-of-touch elites imposing their luxury beliefs on everybody else
8:43 AM · Nov 23, 2023"
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1727608781037584626
This year my course has an intake of 140 (the highest its been for 20 years). We have some overseas, but not as many as in the golden years of 15 years ago when the price differential was far greater.
It also would show Hamas to be truth-telling (about this), or a massive bunch of liars.
It may also cause some people to need to eat a vast amount of humble pie.