Are We All Trussites Now? – politicalbetting.com
Are We All Trussites Now? – politicalbetting.com
LostPassword asks did Liz Truss end the Thatcherite consensus?
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Are We All Trussites Now? – politicalbetting.com
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If anything, Saudi Arabia, with its outsize, money based influence, and sociopath leader, is more dangerous to the world than Iran.
But the Thatcher consensus won’t be at an end until something is done to address the evisceration of local government, and the long running sores of housing, and privatised monopolies.
Even Liz of 49 Days couldn’t manage that.
I think you could probably rock Liz’s look (with slightly better tailoring).
Amusingly in 2015 he beat Nigel Farage, then the current leader of UKIP in South Thanet.
I don't think that's a viable post-oil future.
They can arguably create a future by exporting solar energy as one future pillar, but that will depend on Governance being resolved, intra-ME wars being surpassed, the Middle East no longer being a failed region, and an investment in distribution reminiscent of the establishment of telegraph networks in the late 19C.
Is that possible?
The Government having reached an agreement for the BBC to increase its licence fee by the rate of inflation for several years in return for savings delivered previously, Short-Term-Rishi is going back on the promise for pure attempted politics - which are likely to fail.
The BBC fulfilled it's side of the bargain - a 2 year freeze, and Rishi is welching on the deal. What a miserable, untrustworthy, Scrooge-like Government we have.
At least their reputation is consistent, if that's what they want to reinforce.
Is anyone surprised?
I wonder, is this potentially subject to legal action?
Full article:
https://archive.ph/k4747
To answer your question, far as Saudi is concerned, the availability of almost free energy through solar ought to ensure they remain a fairly prosperous society, irrespective of other questions. Their influence ought though to be much reduced within a decade or two.
A license fee type setup and taxatiion funding are the main models in Europe, with license fees dominant in Western Europe. France is just replacing there's with a VAT levy - part of that may well just be normal Macron political-stuntery.
https://www.statista.com/chart/28040/how-public-broadcaster-services-are-financed-across-europe/
I think what I would like to see is the BBC grabbing hold of this debate, rather than it being defined by kneejerks from washed up attention-seeking politicians, such as the Prime Minister.
Whether the politics will fail or not is irrelevant. It is the right thing to do in a cost of living crisis.
I doubt it would appeal,to Cpt Mainwaring either. He’d be proud of the institution.
A hostile environment for migrants is evolving into a hostile environment for everybody.
There's -> theirs.
("Effing AI keyboards", he lied through his teeth.)
"Venezuelans have voted overwhelmingly in favour of claiming a disputed oil-rich territory long controlled by neighbouring Guyana.
More than 95% approved establishing a new state in Essequibo, officials say."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67610200
I expect there to be trouble in the region very soon.
It is an interesting problem, as you’d still need to entrench multi year funding to at least reduce control by the government of the day - and at the same time come up with a better means of oversight.
The license fee model if surely dead, though, if it can be used, as just happened, to impose a big cut in funding after the settlement has been agreed.
It’s seriously unpopular, and has just lost any advantages it might have in terms of independence from state control.
Note the BBC current leadership is largely the creation of the last decade of Tory government, so they’re unlikely to step up as you wish.
The BBC haters will applaud it.
This would encourage capital investment in order to reduce labour costs, and discourage immigration by increasing UK unemployment.
Or we could make labour markets less flexible by increasing employment rights to much the same effect.
So what is a way ahead?
The Saudis becoming very aggressive, overtures to Israel, the desperate reaction of Hamas, the frantic attempts to become hubs of… something - I think they all stem from a sense that Change Is Coming.
Rishi attacking the BBC has nothing to do with a cost of living crisis; when a few billion is needed to lubricate the base, it appears instantly. The BBC move is political, for appearance.
Personally I think a Prime Minister unable to be trusted is more concerning.
Scrooge is precisely the right comparison - a short-termist Government salami-slicing everything including basic services, and wasting untold amounts of resource along the way by failure to think beyond the end of their noses.
What happened to fixing social care, for example? Or transport expenditure?
FFS in the midst of the greatest security crisis for a generation, this lot have *cut* defence expenditure.
It seems a bit weird in that climate laying it out for maximum solar exposure.
They need to submit to the God of Facts on The Ground.
And admit their culpability for their own potential casualties in a hypothetical war?
I applaud it, not because I hate the BBC but I fundamentally disagree with how it is funded and have done for many years. The license fee is not popular and does not have public support
It is also time non payment of the license fee was decriminalised because many vulnerable people are dragged through the courts and get criminal records for minor indiscretions even when they’ve agreed payment plans.
https://x.com/kirkkorner/status/1721889902995050980?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
And thanks for the header, Tim. This sentence grabs me most:
The Great British Public mind a bit less about being asked to contribute to the common good of the country, then they do about being taxed.
I wonder if that balance is coming to an end, driven for example by the increasing number of Councils unable to balance their books, and therefore services having to be slashed.
In Nottinghamshire there was a recent consultation in potential Council Tax increases. The HIGHEST number the NCC were being allowed to consider by the Government was a 5% CUT in real terms. Anything better than a 5% cut would require a referendum.
Local Government requires significantly increased funding. It's another fine mess we are in:
And many more could follow down the effective bankruptcy route, with the Local Government Information Unit suggesting as many as one in 10 councils are already at risk.
...
George Osborne decided to reduce that funding pot, known as the revenue support grant (or RSG) and replace it by allowing local authorities to keep more of the council tax and business rates they collected.
...
In reality, the figures have rarely settled out, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying the poorest fifth of councils are getting about 10% below their needs, compared with the richest fifth getting about 15% above their requirements.
And this is born out in a National Audit Office (NAO) report, that showed councils' spending power fell in real terms by more than 50% on a like-for-like basis between 2010-11 and 2020-21.
https://news.sky.com/story/why-are-councils-going-bankrupt-13018122
The funding of the BBC is anachronistic in the modern era. It is time they looked at how the BBC will be funded in future.
Fund true public service Tv and the distribution network from General taxation and let the BBC raise funds how it chooses in a commercial model outside of a license fee.
The sad bit is they could have boldly made a case to move to take control of world wide rights and sell a world wide “License”. With online distribution, every market is open. My guesstimate is that the income from the USA, alone would be of the order of the current license fee.
The final step would be free BBC for anyone in the U.K.
Brand BBC would be world wide. Reinvigorated with new money. And, for the first time, utterly independent.
Sadly, we lack the politicians and broadcasters with the vision to make such a future.
It may be subtler, but apply Meek's epigoni theory to that description and tell me who could least follow Sunak as PM from those who have been mooted as Tory leaders? Who else most fits that description?
For the purposes of wordplay, I will answer this simple question pulling in Sunak's heritage and religious devoutness (in a neutral way), his chronic inexperience for the role of PM, and his apparent opposition to environmentalism.
Rishi Sunak, my friends, is governing as if he were Jain Cub Rish Smog.
Going back to Blair the govt has pushed more and more onto local govt and not adequately funded it. It got appreciably worse under the Tories and does not look like improving anytime soon.
It’s a real mess.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
Defuses the issue.
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, and Stephen Flynn how the SNP voted in the 1979 motion of no confidence.
https://twitter.com/willglloyd/status/1731316958614769986
They live in terror of a move to an encrypted system.
He needs to lean back, manspread and dominate the space with his genitals. Like when Carra is on Sky Sports.
Indeed Disney is to American soft power what the Beeb is to British soft power.
Profitable globally, subsidised at home, the opportunities are endless. Of course that wouldn’t stop it being a political football, as Disney’s recent experience shows.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/29/biden-inflation-soft-landing-economy-00128999
… Low unemployment, real wage growth and a fast-growing economy should be providing a boost to the public’s perception of Biden’s economic policies. It hasn’t, as countless polls demonstrate. But with inflation still climbing — albeit at a much slower rate than last year — affordability remains a top concern for voters. And that’s been enough to keep Biden’s polls on the economy deeply underwater...
If someone 'loves' the BBC, then they should argue that the funding model needs to evolve to face the challenges formed by the Internet and the orders of magnitude more media available to the public.
The plan was to replace it with a form of encryption in the early 60s. But the technology of the day wasn’t up to the job.
See https://www.amazon.co.uk/Codebreakers-Comprehensive-History-Communication-Internet/dp/0684831309
I would favour making the BBC free of use and funded through general taxation for national events and educational content (there is a case for news, potentially) and the rest can go on a subscription model.
The better course would be to adopt a Lawsonian approach to tax reform and simply incorporate NI into IT but, since that has proved too difficult, a series of steps like the Autumn statement should eventually get us there.
Trump actually gets better coverage from liberal media - in that they basically repeat every outrageous statement verbatim as a headline. He plays that to great advantage.
Netflix has a problem with content - the big media giants have slowed giving them stuff. They are all trying to stream, themselves. So Netflix is trying its hand at content - and making some very expensive rubbish.
The BBC has much of the content it needs for this - it needs the worldwide rights, mainly.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs
Documentary
Radio
Drama
"Light Entertainment"
Children's
Sport
Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
Has the whiff of the Post Office scandal about it. Vulnerable people, in dire financial straits, signed off en masse by magistrates*, isolated legal representation.
* Is it happening in Scotland too?
It might be that Lord Cameron can successfully advocate for sensible positions, and contribute to a modicum of good governance in the remaining time before the Sunak Ministry is defenestrated by the electorate, but even if he does he probably won't get much credit from electorate. The public might like the potential benefits of a dose of Cameronism in this Government, but they won't appreciate Cameron himself.
In a similar vein, I think Starmer recognises that the public might enjoy a touch of Blairism but no one wants him to bring Blair back into Government.
No TV license?, that will be 100 points off your credit rating. Simples.
Oxford names ‘rizz’ word of the year
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4340335-oxford-names-rizz-word-of-the-year/
I thought it meant risible.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100213156/
Edit: but see DAvidL's post which I have now seen. Confused ...
Do we really want to clog the courts up with needless prosecuting of the most vulnerable ?
https://x.com/kirkkorner/status/1729591348213207508?s=61&t=s0ae0IFncdLS1Dc7J0P_TQ
Edit my guess is that they show the number of people offered a fixed penalty first.
Sir Keir looks Reagan-esque here
Netflix, and other streaming services, are in the start up phase. Many are still in their infancy. They won’t make money. Obviously they will expect to at a future date. If they don’t they don’t, if they do, great.
I think there are probably too many and there will be some consolidation.
I'm not saying it should be like this, in many ways this method of choosing leaders is quite backwards and stupid, it leads to people choosing leaders like Trump, but the reality is that politicians who can't assert strength struggle to impress the public. Pictures like this are quite harmful to the Tories' chances IMHO.