RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
it was dated 30 years ago - the only reason it's survived so long is precisely because it's cheap to make
No. It survived because it had splendid presenters and excellent Captains. The BBC committed Hari kiri over this programne.. especially booting Sue Barker.. They are bonkers.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
I’m currently watching Mary Berry’s highland Christmas. Is that woke?
She was also on Gardeners World this evening. At her age, she either has a good agent or a poor pension.
Reposting - Am now watching via YT today's blue plate special served up by latest Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry grilling.
Barrister for the Inquiry is quite good. As with other Inquiry lawyers, his manner is polite, restrained, focused, relentless.
In contrast, the solicitor for firm of law-mongers hired by the buffon's then (and now?) the PO is about as hopeless as the local yokel lawyer in "My Cousin Vinnie".
That is, crap. Wouldn't hire him to notarize a pet license, let alone furnish legal advice above AI standard.
Fairliered comment on above:
FR: The Post Office chose lawyers that would make their management look competent by comparison.
SSI - Didn't work, hell no!
It is remarkable how that solicitor (from an external legal firm hired by the PO) began confident and articulate, but within a couple of hours was reduced to a gibbering wreck who could barely understand what he was being asked.
I think I said all this in my last contribution so thanks for catching up.
Talking to a despairing ex-Conservative colleague at lunch time, I was able to offer him some hope. Even if it takes two defeats, it's still likely (though not certain) the Conservatives will be the only viable alternative Government.
Opposition to Starmer will emerge, perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly. That opposition will be around what the Government does or tries to do rather than re-fighting the battles of 2010-24 (and especially 2016-24) and the Conservatives will need to focus their energies on what the Government is or isn't about rather than what should have happened before. IF the Conservatives remain rooted in and obsessed by rhe battles of their time in Government, opposition to Starmer will default to the LDs, Greens and others.
The world of the mid-2030s will have plenty of challenges and an adroit opposition will have plenty of issues on which to attack the Government but the one thing they can't afford is self-indulgence in opposition otherwise Labour won't be in for 10 years but 15 or perhaps longer.
If he’s an ex-Conservative, he shouldn’t despair, so?
I would describe him as an old-fashioned Conservative who has been repulsed by the move to populism. He is despairing both in terms of a future Labour Government and the continuation of the present administration.
Several of my Conservative friends are in the same mood. I suspect a few will hold their noses and vote Tory nonetheless, some will just sit the election out.
Interestingly, I have just done a really weird yougov which might have been trying to dig into this. It asked if you considered yourself a Conservative, a Lib, a Lab, etc. After some thought, I answered in the spirit I think the question was intended and put 'Conservative'. It then asked why. After some thought, I answered that it's because despite their many faults they seem the only way of keeping the Labour Party out, and I fear the Labour Party more than I fear any other government.
More interestingly still, it asked what I thought was the biggest issue facing the country today. Again, after some thought, I answered 'our inability to disagree civilly with one another'. Which I think is true; if we can manage to do that, everything else will fall into place.
I can't imagine how they will code this survey.
It also asked lots of questions to prove I was paying attention e.g. really simple questions, the same question worded two simple ways, etc.
I struggle with the notion anyone can "fear" a Labour Government led by Starmer. Apprehension perhaps, frustration maybe but fear, seriously?
I'd have thought five more years of the current Government a greater source of anxiety.
He’s backtracked on almost everything he said to get elected as leader, just as he backtracked on his acceptance of the Brexit result once he got ejected as an MP in 2017. So that’s one thing to fear, that he’ll stay true to form and go back on his word on every policy in the manifesto
For instance he pledged to fight for the right of FOM to get elected as leader, and now he’s equating open door immigration with low wages for the working class
If you are in a political party, you sign up to the notion of collective responsibility. Have the Conservatives been wholly consistent since 2010? Hardly - you've had huge policy upheavals under Cameron, May, Truss and Johnson before Sunak. We now see for example commitments on house building targets ended by Gove (presumably because they think building houses in rural England is a vote loser) so let's not assume Labour is the only party which routinely changes policy on a whim?
As for what Labour will have in its manifesto, it's as much of a mystery to me as well. I suspect it will be a pretty anodyne document which will give some plenty to complain about and Starmer plenty of room for manoeuvre.
Yes, but the question was ’’What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ not ‘Do all political parties lie to get elected?’
Sir Keir has backtracked on pledges he made ‘As a matter of principle’ yet is treated as if he is the most honest man to walk the earth.
Pre GE17 he said accepting the referendum result was ‘a matter of principle’
Pre GE19 he said a second referendum in which he would campaign for Remain was ‘a really important point of principle’
Pre Lab Leader Election he pledged to fight for the rights of Migrant workers and FOM
Now he’s saying mass immigration lowers wages for the British working class
So the answer to ‘What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ is that he could do the complete opposite of what he promised to do in order to get your vote
He is made of exactly the stuff successful politicians have to have - that mixture of the image of principle and the machinations of Machiavelli. IIRC the Economist recently was pointing out that the problem with chaps like Rory Stewart is that their principles are fine but they are no good at the sheer dirtiness of politics.
As we need at least one electable leader and there are no other candidates for electability anywhere in sight, we should be grateful. Hopefully he will want election and reelection, and as he knows you only win from the centre, he can be mostly trusted.
Reason to fear SKSLab #1: "we want more harder lockdowns". Reason to fear SKSLab #2: that picture of him and Ange jumping on the George Floyd bandwagon. Reason to fear SKSLab #3: his decrying the government not joining the EU vaccine scheme. These are just the first three that apring to mind.
Sure, this government is shit. But SKSLab rarely misses an opportunity to indicate it will, given the chance, be shitter: it attacks it from the wrong side (e.g. lockdown), and rarely takes an opportunity to say it would reverse a bad decision by government (e.g. HS2). That is why I fear SKSLab. I expect it to make Britain less free, less productive and woker.
OTOH, they have madesome vaguely encouraging noises about housing.
It won't be good under LAB! This is why - despite what the polls say - there is no real enthusiasm for them and as @Andy_JS has alluded to earlier, they will do well to get to 40%.
Of course 35% was more than enough in 2005 though!
"The UK economy has outperformed France and Germany since the pandemic and, based on today's PMIs, is currently doing much better as well (composite PMI consistent with growth in Q4 versus a contraction in GER and FRA)."
UK has done similarly to France (ahead on absolutes, behind per capita). But remember French median household income is around 60k and the UK’s is 38k. So they are more than 50% richer than us per family. We have more valuable assets because our houses are expensive, but much lower income.
Germany did well during Covid so its performance after Covid doesn’t include any bounce back. But they are doing properly badly now and I think will do for some time.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Look through the listings.
I have and its gone.. there is little left. The BBC is full of repeats that one has seen many times before. Its crap and its getting worse. I don't want to.pay for it and I shouldn't have to. Let the BBC be subject to being answerable to their decisions and collaping viewing figures.and incompetence.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
"Doing some heavy lifting" "Well-respected" "Ahem"
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies have been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
Traditional television is controlled by young, woke people, and watched by old, reactionary people. We should get our revenge and get Peter Hitchens, Nigel Farage and Peter Bone to take over TikTok.
Argentina's new AnCap Generalissimo is getting started:
"BREAKING 🇦🇷 President Javier Milei announces a total crackdown on Argentine civil society, calling on armed forces to break strikes, arrest protestors, “protect” children from families that bring them to demos, and form a new national registry of all agitating organisations."
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies have been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
Traditional television is controlled by young, woke people, and watched by old, reactionary people. We should get our revenge and get Peter Hitchens, Nigel Farage and Peter Bone to take over TikTok.
Might be progress over its current control by Xi Jinping.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Look through the listings.
I have and its gone.. there is little left. The BBC is full of repeats that one has seen many times before. Its crap and its getting worse. I don't want to.pay for it and I shouldn't have to. Let the BBC be subject to being answerable to their decisions and collaping viewing figures.and incompetence.
It’s probably Britain’s most globally powerful brand. Possibly the second most powerful media brand in the world, after Disney. With incredible content still being created despite years of cuts. An asset all other national broadcasters (and governments) would kill for.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You POSTURING POLTROON
And you, sir, are a preening popinjay.
I had to look it up. It's just the straight (cis?) equivalent of a drag queen, a man dressing as a man in a really extravagant manner. Think Laurence Llewellyn Bowen on acid. More acid. On fire. In space. 😃
I think I said all this in my last contribution so thanks for catching up.
Talking to a despairing ex-Conservative colleague at lunch time, I was able to offer him some hope. Even if it takes two defeats, it's still likely (though not certain) the Conservatives will be the only viable alternative Government.
Opposition to Starmer will emerge, perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly. That opposition will be around what the Government does or tries to do rather than re-fighting the battles of 2010-24 (and especially 2016-24) and the Conservatives will need to focus their energies on what the Government is or isn't about rather than what should have happened before. IF the Conservatives remain rooted in and obsessed by rhe battles of their time in Government, opposition to Starmer will default to the LDs, Greens and others.
The world of the mid-2030s will have plenty of challenges and an adroit opposition will have plenty of issues on which to attack the Government but the one thing they can't afford is self-indulgence in opposition otherwise Labour won't be in for 10 years but 15 or perhaps longer.
If he’s an ex-Conservative, he shouldn’t despair, so?
I would describe him as an old-fashioned Conservative who has been repulsed by the move to populism. He is despairing both in terms of a future Labour Government and the continuation of the present administration.
Several of my Conservative friends are in the same mood. I suspect a few will hold their noses and vote Tory nonetheless, some will just sit the election out.
Interestingly, I have just done a really weird yougov which might have been trying to dig into this. It asked if you considered yourself a Conservative, a Lib, a Lab, etc. After some thought, I answered in the spirit I think the question was intended and put 'Conservative'. It then asked why. After some thought, I answered that it's because despite their many faults they seem the only way of keeping the Labour Party out, and I fear the Labour Party more than I fear any other government.
More interestingly still, it asked what I thought was the biggest issue facing the country today. Again, after some thought, I answered 'our inability to disagree civilly with one another'. Which I think is true; if we can manage to do that, everything else will fall into place.
I can't imagine how they will code this survey.
It also asked lots of questions to prove I was paying attention e.g. really simple questions, the same question worded two simple ways, etc.
I struggle with the notion anyone can "fear" a Labour Government led by Starmer. Apprehension perhaps, frustration maybe but fear, seriously?
I'd have thought five more years of the current Government a greater source of anxiety.
He’s backtracked on almost everything he said to get elected as leader, just as he backtracked on his acceptance of the Brexit result once he got ejected as an MP in 2017. So that’s one thing to fear, that he’ll stay true to form and go back on his word on every policy in the manifesto
For instance he pledged to fight for the right of FOM to get elected as leader, and now he’s equating open door immigration with low wages for the working class
If you are in a political party, you sign up to the notion of collective responsibility. Have the Conservatives been wholly consistent since 2010? Hardly - you've had huge policy upheavals under Cameron, May, Truss and Johnson before Sunak. We now see for example commitments on house building targets ended by Gove (presumably because they think building houses in rural England is a vote loser) so let's not assume Labour is the only party which routinely changes policy on a whim?
As for what Labour will have in its manifesto, it's as much of a mystery to me as well. I suspect it will be a pretty anodyne document which will give some plenty to complain about and Starmer plenty of room for manoeuvre.
Yes, but the question was ’’What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ not ‘Do all political parties lie to get elected?’
Sir Keir has backtracked on pledges he made ‘As a matter of principle’ yet is treated as if he is the most honest man to walk the earth.
Pre GE17 he said accepting the referendum result was ‘a matter of principle’
Pre GE19 he said a second referendum in which he would campaign for Remain was ‘a really important point of principle’
Pre Lab Leader Election he pledged to fight for the rights of Migrant workers and FOM
Now he’s saying mass immigration lowers wages for the British working class
So the answer to ‘What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ is that he could do the complete opposite of what he promised to do in order to get your vote
He is made of exactly the stuff successful politicians have to have - that mixture of the image of principle and the machinations of Machiavelli. IIRC the Economist recently was pointing out that the problem with chaps like Rory Stewart is that their principles are fine but they are no good at the sheer dirtiness of politics.
As we need at least one electable leader and there are no other candidates for electability anywhere in sight, we should be grateful. Hopefully he will want election and reelection, and as he knows you only win from the centre, he can be mostly trusted.
Reason to fear SKSLab #1: "we want more harder lockdowns". Reason to fear SKSLab #2: that picture of him and Ange jumping on the George Floyd bandwagon. Reason to fear SKSLab #3: his decrying the government not joining the EU vaccine scheme. These are just the first three that apring to mind.
Sure, this government is shit. But SKSLab rarely misses an opportunity to indicate it will, given the chance, be shitter: it attacks it from the wrong side (e.g. lockdown), and rarely takes an opportunity to say it would reverse a bad decision by government (e.g. HS2). That is why I fear SKSLab. I expect it to make Britain less free, less productive and woker.
OTOH, they have madesome vaguely encouraging noises about housing.
It won't be good under LAB! This is why - despite what the polls say - there is no real enthusiasm for them and as @Andy_JS has alluded to earlier, they will do well to get to 40%.
Of course 35% was more than enough in 2005 though!
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Look through the listings.
I have and its gone.. there is little left. The BBC is full of repeats that one has seen many times before. Its crap and its getting worse. I don't want to.pay for it and I shouldn't have to. Let the BBC be subject to being answerable to their decisions and collaping viewing figures.and incompetence.
It’s probably Britain’s most globally powerful brand. Possibly the second most powerful media brand in the world, after Disney. With incredible content still being created despite years of cuts. An asset all other national broadcasters (and governments) would kill for.
The Tories, meanwhile, are thinking of putting the soon to be unemployed Spielman in charge of it.
After the fantastic job she did of taking a bad exam system and making it worse, and taking a punitive school inspection system and making it into one both punishing and completely worthless, what could possibly go wrong?
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
Possibly. Edge of Darkness was in 1985ish. You would have been 11 or 12. Blackadder was the 80s. It's been a long downhill slide since then. It wasn't always bad journalism and reality shows.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don't have to. If you consume it you pay for it, if you don't you don't have to. Isn't that what Conservatives believe in?
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
It has a good 20 yrs
So, since I was about 30? I can remember those days pretty well.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Britain has undoubtedly suffered from Brexit. Tho I would argue our under-performance dates more from the GFC
Either way it was the belief of Leavers like me that after initial pain, Brexit would start to benefit us, in comparison to the more sluggish EU - despite all the hassles with trade etc
That may just be happening, the first glimmers. Could be an illusion. Yet if it is the case it will upend the whole political debate as we’ve known it ever since 2016
And I hope the same happens to everyone else involved in spreading lies about election fraud. The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Perhaps if this and similar cases had happened a year ago, they might just have gotten through to the brainwashed MAGA cultists.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
Possibly. Edge of Darkness was in 1985ish. You would have been 11 or 12. Blackadder was the 80s. It's been a long downhill slide since then. It wasn't always bad journalism and reality shows.
I watched an episode of BlackAdder II last night - ‘Head’. Watched them originally when I was a 4th year junior in 86. Could still recite it word for word. Absolute quality
I think I said all this in my last contribution so thanks for catching up.
Talking to a despairing ex-Conservative colleague at lunch time, I was able to offer him some hope. Even if it takes two defeats, it's still likely (though not certain) the Conservatives will be the only viable alternative Government.
Opposition to Starmer will emerge, perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly. That opposition will be around what the Government does or tries to do rather than re-fighting the battles of 2010-24 (and especially 2016-24) and the Conservatives will need to focus their energies on what the Government is or isn't about rather than what should have happened before. IF the Conservatives remain rooted in and obsessed by rhe battles of their time in Government, opposition to Starmer will default to the LDs, Greens and others.
The world of the mid-2030s will have plenty of challenges and an adroit opposition will have plenty of issues on which to attack the Government but the one thing they can't afford is self-indulgence in opposition otherwise Labour won't be in for 10 years but 15 or perhaps longer.
If he’s an ex-Conservative, he shouldn’t despair, so?
Depends.
If they're in the category where the c in conservative is small, then there's a lot to despair about. One nation wet conservatism has been on life support for a while and the noise from the monitoring machine doesn't sound promising. See the waving through of the Rwanda (whatever you say, Prime Minister) bill this week.
And whilst they remain the main opposition, the position of the Conservative Party is a lot more vulnerable than Labour's state in 2019. They had a plausible front bench in exile. The Conservatives don't, really- hence the need to drape Dave in ermine. And the age profile of every level of conservatism skews much older than in the past. Much older. Unless they snap out of it PDQ in opposition, there's a non trivial risk that there won't be much party to save.
This is true, except for the continuing reality that there remains no belief among politicians or the public that there is any alternative to Labour and tory being first and second in general elections.
What is startling is this: In 2019 the Tories got 43.6% of the vote. The low end of current projections is that they will get just over half of that figure (YouGov latest, 22%).
While I don't think that will occur, it absolutely is not impossible; as at the moment in place of trying to do grown up centrist politics which might impress the thoughtful One Nation volk they are trying but failing to do populist politics.
Which keeps reminding believers in simple solutions to complex realities that Reform, by not having to make decisions, do it much more impressively. Hence the high polling for the party no-one has heard of and the desertion of the thoughtful.
I know I am banging the same old drum and no one else here gives it any credence at all, but it amazes me that no one considers the reason the Tories were polling 18% in 2019, are polling 22% now, yet those scores bookended a landslide election victory where they polled 43% might be the lame duck leaders they had either side of the election winner.
Maybe it’s not EVERYTHING, but if it wasn’t for me, readers on here would genuinely think Boris was a drag on them, which defies any sensible reading of the last 5 years of Tory polling
This robust analysis misses bits out.
1) Before Boris stepped down the polling was consistently against him - not as awful as now but not good.
2) Boris stepped down because he had lost his own party and the public. He lost it all because of things which would have been very simply avoided to someone who had moral sense, political antennae, and common sense. Many who voted for him expected him to rise to the occasion pf being PM out of pure self interest. The critics who said he could not were right. I and millions of others were wrong.
3) While all politics is relative, the fact that those before and after Boris were and are terrible does not make him good. He did well in GE 2019 because he had not yet trashed his own opportunity, there was no alternative way of doing Brexit (partly because of his own tactics) and no-one wanted the friend of Hamas in Downing Street. (And because Boris was and is a flawed genius)
1) The Polling when he left was better than when he took over, and better than it is now 2) He lost the support of his MPs, a lot of whom regret getting rid now. Tory members and 2019 voters still prefer him to any other option according to the betting markets when he looked like running against Sunak ( Boris was odds on) and R&Ws polling 3) Yes I take your point. My contention is that anyone looking on without revisionist history in mind would just see 18%-43%-22% and think “Why’d they get rid of the 43%er?” As I said it’s not EVERYTHING, but people on here literally dismiss it, which I think is weird
All nonsense anyway, it is what it is.
Fair points, but you miss out that Boris blew himself up by needlessly behaving in ways which were going to destroy him as and when he was found out. This is amazing but true. In all sorts of ways he was great. But the second, still emerging, failing is that he failed to surround himself with a solid body of really expert advice so that he could exercise his fantastic presentational and inspirational skills while also running a more or less coherent government.
Everyone who was around him was either a nightmare themselves or found him a nightmare. Or both. This is neither irrelevant nor a coincidence.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
Possibly. Edge of Darkness was in 1985ish. You would have been 11 or 12. Blackadder was the 80s. It's been a long downhill slide since then. It wasn't always bad journalism and reality shows.
I watched an episode of BlackAdder II last night - ‘Head’. Watched them originally when I was a 4th year junior in 86. Could still recite it word for word. Absolute quality
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don't have to. If you consume it you pay for it, if you don't you don't have to. Isn't that what Conservatives believe in?
That's not true though. You need a a license to watch any live TV, not just BBC.
Of course you could simply not bother with a license and watch it anyway, and tell anybody from TV Licence Enforcement who show up at your home to sod off, since they have no legal right of entry without your permission.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I’m 50 in 2 weeks. If I’m “too young” to remember any of the good stuff then it’s been shit a helluva long time.
Possibly. Edge of Darkness was in 1985ish. You would have been 11 or 12. Blackadder was the 80s. It's been a long downhill slide since then. It wasn't always bad journalism and reality shows.
I watched an episode of BlackAdder II last night - ‘Head’. Watched them originally when I was a 4th year junior in 86. Could still recite it word for word. Absolute quality
My 15 year old daughter finds Blackadder 2 very funny.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Look through the listings.
I have and its gone.. there is little left. The BBC is full of repeats that one has seen many times before. Its crap and its getting worse. I don't want to.pay for it and I shouldn't have to. Let the BBC be subject to being answerable to their decisions and collaping viewing figures.and incompetence.
BBC telly is more or less a sideshow. BBC radio is indispensable.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You trust the IDF word as gospel despite them being all of the above
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
The Greens prop up Tory councils. That’s some amazing mental gymnastics to regard them as “socialists”
The idea that you’re a “socialist” is laughable given your output on here and your membership of an opportunistic pressure group that will jump into bed with any party.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
No, you’re not understanding the data.
Average incomes aren’t that different in the UK and France.
Median incomes - which is what you are looking at in those links - are very significantly higher in France.
The reason is that a significantly greater proportion of the UK’s total income goes to the more wealthy - I.E. the Uk is significantly more unequal - hence the guy (or gal) in the middle of the range is significantly worse off in Britain (as are those nearer the bottom, although this doesn’t show from that data).
This also shows in regional data - London is a high income area, whereas the North East has an average income lower than some parts of former communist Eastern Europe.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
In the seven years to Q3 2023 the UK economy has grown by 8% while the EU27 has grown by 11% and the Euro Area by 10%. By contrast in the 10 years to Q2 2016 the UK economy grew by 15%, the EU27 by 8% and the Euro Area by 7%. We have gone from one of the strongest growing major economies in the EU to underperforming both the EU and the Euro Area. We are, it is true, currently doing better than Germany. That reflects the impact of the energy shock on them. Italy is currently doing better than Germany too. Perhaps that is because of Brexit. For sure if we start to perform much better than the EU then the narrative around Brexit will change. But that isn't happening yet, and to my mind is quite unlikely to happen.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You trust the IDF word as gospel despite them being all of the above
No. I assume they are not telling the truth, or at least, a highly distorted version of it. Just as I do Hamas. As I said at the outset, if you see heroes or good guys on either side in this conflict, you need an eye test (and not one devised by Cummings).
I also assume that a man who has infamously never told the truth in his life, promotes neo-Nazi conspiracy theories and schills for Fascist regimes will not be telling the truth. But you don't make that assumption. Because he fits your prejudices.
Something really unpleasant has happened to you, and it's frankly disturbing to watch. It's Plato with added nastiness.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
OK. Maybe it is just easy to axe. QoS is mainly a few panellists and the rights to sports clips.
It was axed because the BBC doesn't really like that section of its audience which watches QoS, and would rather chase the market share of 'people who don't watch telly'. Because that's the kind of decisions you can make due to the unique way the BBC is funded.
Media companies having been annoying people by axing things older people like in favour of incomprehensible stuff to appeal to “youth” since as long as I’ve been noticing. Radio 1 did it every 5 years or so throughout the 80s, 90s and noughties and got loads of shit for it every time.
This is the same old thing. It seems mad when it happens, but looking back imagine if Radio 1 were still like the days of Tony Blackburn. Just one of those things. It’s nothing new. It’s one of the inevitable sadnesses of getting old.
If that be the case and they don't want to appeal to the likes of me, why should I have to pay the license fee?
You don't have to. If you consume it you pay for it, if you don't you don't have to. Isn't that what Conservatives believe in?
That's not true though. You need a a license to watch any live TV, not just BBC.
Of course you could simply not bother with a license and watch it anyway, and tell anybody from TV Licence Enforcement who show up at your home to sod off, since they have no legal right of entry without your permission.
Live being the appropriate word. We have a licence for one house. We don't for our other. There are plenty of alternatives without breaking the rules. It really isn't a big issue. Rather than whinging about paying for something that is voluntary, he should just stop and do something else. Nobody is making him. A bit like paying someone to punch you in the face. Just stop.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You trust the IDF word as gospel despite them being all of the above
If Labour just fall short of a majority, would the LDs be happy to go into coalition with them, or would they prefer to stay out of one, given what happened last time they entered a coalition in 2010?
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Why is QoS expensive? I'd expect it to be quite cheap to make - unless the panelists earn an f'load.
it was dated 30 years ago - the only reason it's survived so long is precisely because it's cheap to make
This is right. It's not been appointment viewing since the days of McCoist and Parrott, nor any good whatsoever since Tuffers. They've tried revamps (that weren't very 'woke' - whatever else he is, Paddy McGuinness isn't that) but ultimately its problem is the changing landscape of sport and media meant it lost its star power and relevance.
From its inception until probably the early-2000s it could pretty much guarantee regular big names - playing or retired. It would be a disappointment when they had a jockey (except Dettori) or a swimmer on. Now? If you look at the episode guide if you've heard of people it's largely if they were around 20 years ago. Leon Osman appeared twice!
Todays sports stars, unless they are reaching retirement and starting a media career so are saying 'yes' to everything, simply don't feel the need. Their schedules are more demanding, and they do a lot of media work of their own - either for themselves or promoting clubs and sponsors.
If they do want to build a media career they have umpteen options - podcasts, streaming, and Sky. The latter who have in some ways killed QoS with A League of Their Own. Which took the basic idea, zazzed it up, threw money at it to secure big names and used Sky's roster of pundits. The BBC can't compete with their budget these days. They could get Flintoff to do Top Gear, with its big budget due to its commercial value, but not QoS. Nor arguably should they.
It's sad. But everything comes to an end. And QoS has probably lasted far longer than it would or should have done without the residual affection for what it once was.
I think I said all this in my last contribution so thanks for catching up.
Talking to a despairing ex-Conservative colleague at lunch time, I was able to offer him some hope. Even if it takes two defeats, it's still likely (though not certain) the Conservatives will be the only viable alternative Government.
Opposition to Starmer will emerge, perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly. That opposition will be around what the Government does or tries to do rather than re-fighting the battles of 2010-24 (and especially 2016-24) and the Conservatives will need to focus their energies on what the Government is or isn't about rather than what should have happened before. IF the Conservatives remain rooted in and obsessed by rhe battles of their time in Government, opposition to Starmer will default to the LDs, Greens and others.
The world of the mid-2030s will have plenty of challenges and an adroit opposition will have plenty of issues on which to attack the Government but the one thing they can't afford is self-indulgence in opposition otherwise Labour won't be in for 10 years but 15 or perhaps longer.
If he’s an ex-Conservative, he shouldn’t despair, so?
I would describe him as an old-fashioned Conservative who has been repulsed by the move to populism. He is despairing both in terms of a future Labour Government and the continuation of the present administration.
Several of my Conservative friends are in the same mood. I suspect a few will hold their noses and vote Tory nonetheless, some will just sit the election out.
Interestingly, I have just done a really weird yougov which might have been trying to dig into this. It asked if you considered yourself a Conservative, a Lib, a Lab, etc. After some thought, I answered in the spirit I think the question was intended and put 'Conservative'. It then asked why. After some thought, I answered that it's because despite their many faults they seem the only way of keeping the Labour Party out, and I fear the Labour Party more than I fear any other government.
More interestingly still, it asked what I thought was the biggest issue facing the country today. Again, after some thought, I answered 'our inability to disagree civilly with one another'. Which I think is true; if we can manage to do that, everything else will fall into place.
I can't imagine how they will code this survey.
It also asked lots of questions to prove I was paying attention e.g. really simple questions, the same question worded two simple ways, etc.
I struggle with the notion anyone can "fear" a Labour Government led by Starmer. Apprehension perhaps, frustration maybe but fear, seriously?
I'd have thought five more years of the current Government a greater source of anxiety.
He’s backtracked on almost everything he said to get elected as leader, just as he backtracked on his acceptance of the Brexit result once he got ejected as an MP in 2017. So that’s one thing to fear, that he’ll stay true to form and go back on his word on every policy in the manifesto
For instance he pledged to fight for the right of FOM to get elected as leader, and now he’s equating open door immigration with low wages for the working class
If you are in a political party, you sign up to the notion of collective responsibility. Have the Conservatives been wholly consistent since 2010? Hardly - you've had huge policy upheavals under Cameron, May, Truss and Johnson before Sunak. We now see for example commitments on house building targets ended by Gove (presumably because they think building houses in rural England is a vote loser) so let's not assume Labour is the only party which routinely changes policy on a whim?
As for what Labour will have in its manifesto, it's as much of a mystery to me as well. I suspect it will be a pretty anodyne document which will give some plenty to complain about and Starmer plenty of room for manoeuvre.
Yes, but the question was ’’What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ not ‘Do all political parties lie to get elected?’
Sir Keir has backtracked on pledges he made ‘As a matter of principle’ yet is treated as if he is the most honest man to walk the earth.
Pre GE17 he said accepting the referendum result was ‘a matter of principle’
Pre GE19 he said a second referendum in which he would campaign for Remain was ‘a really important point of principle’
Pre Lab Leader Election he pledged to fight for the rights of Migrant workers and FOM
Now he’s saying mass immigration lowers wages for the British working class
So the answer to ‘What could anyone seriously fear about a Labour Party led by Starmer?’ is that he could do the complete opposite of what he promised to do in order to get your vote
He is made of exactly the stuff successful politicians have to have - that mixture of the image of principle and the machinations of Machiavelli. IIRC the Economist recently was pointing out that the problem with chaps like Rory Stewart is that their principles are fine but they are no good at the sheer dirtiness of politics.
As we need at least one electable leader and there are no other candidates for electability anywhere in sight, we should be grateful. Hopefully he will want election and reelection, and as he knows you only win from the centre, he can be mostly trusted.
Reason to fear SKSLab #1: "we want more harder lockdowns". Reason to fear SKSLab #2: that picture of him and Ange jumping on the George Floyd bandwagon. Reason to fear SKSLab #3: his decrying the government not joining the EU vaccine scheme. These are just the first three that apring to mind.
Sure, this government is shit. But SKSLab rarely misses an opportunity to indicate it will, given the chance, be shitter: it attacks it from the wrong side (e.g. lockdown), and rarely takes an opportunity to say it would reverse a bad decision by government (e.g. HS2). That is why I fear SKSLab. I expect it to make Britain less free, less productive and woker.
OTOH, they have madesome vaguely encouraging noises about housing.
Absolutely fair points. He's a politician, and has been skillful as well as lucky in getting where he now is. Only two parties can lead a government in the UK, and the current one has blown it. There is a fairly high chance that a Labour led government will be better than this one.
They can hardly be worse in terms of image, general competence and presentation. They have a chance of reviewing sanely the Brexit situation. SKS is now, SFAICS, hated by the left. He has a reasonably decent team around him. He can't chuck away cash because he hasn't any. He isn't going to try to pass bills declaring North Korea to be a safe country and try to oust the court's jurisdiction. There isn't a One Nation Tory party available. He is the nearest thing we have. Labour does not talk in populist cliches, on the whole.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
In the seven years to Q3 2023 the UK economy has grown by 8% while the EU27 has grown by 11% and the Euro Area by 10%. By contrast in the 10 years to Q2 2016 the UK economy grew by 15%, the EU27 by 8% and the Euro Area by 7%. We have gone from one of the strongest growing major economies in the EU to underperforming both the EU and the Euro Area. We are, it is true, currently doing better than Germany. That reflects the impact of the energy shock on them. Italy is currently doing better than Germany too. Perhaps that is because of Brexit. For sure if we start to perform much better than the EU then the narrative around Brexit will change. But that isn't happening yet, and to my mind is quite unlikely to happen.
We are now doing better than France and Germany, our near peers in the EU in terms of importance, size and population
It may be a passing phenomenon, if it is not, then it changes a lot
Italy's performance is interesting, what has gone right for them, all of a sudden? I thought they were fucked by Russian energy prices/non supply
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
You being a Tory and me not being a Tory its quite bizarre you would think the Greens are Tories
Maybe you are just a bit thick
I'm sure Dr Sunil Prasannan PhD will feel duly bound to accept the aspersions cast on his intellect by somebody who uncritically posts material from notorious conspiracy theorist, forger and liar Craig Murray.
That is relevant to whether the Greens are Tories or not Why?
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
He certainly does know better than you that the Greens are ultimately not interested in the victory of the left. And that means in our system they end by aiding the right.
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
And I hope the same happens to everyone else involved in spreading lies about election fraud. The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Perhaps if this and similar cases had happened a year ago, they might just have gotten through to the brainwashed MAGA cultists.
16 years ago, and for practically all of 2007, Giuliani led in polls to be GOP candidate in the 2008 Presidential election. He'd waned a bit by December, but at times in the summer had looked a very strong favourite - not least because he appeared to be best placed to appeal to Democrats.
Quite a remarkable decline, and Messrs Daniels and Beam must take their share of the blame.
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
Woke Shite is an apt description of the BBC right now. Woke stays. Sorry
Yeah. Agree. It’s useful. There’s a correlation between (1) those that use the word and (2) reactionary bellends whose viewpoints can be safely disregarded.
You are obviously too young to remember the excellent stuff the BBC used to produce. I justvscroll past most of the output. I have moved to the little that is decent that can be recorded to avoid incessant adverts and trailers.
I appreciate this is all 'eye of the beholder' stuff but I find the suggestions that the BBC output is complete shite utterly baffling.
We have tried subscriptions to: 1. Netflix - enjoyed Queens Gambit, the first few series of the Crown (the last two have been utter shite), tried Schitt's Creek - a one joke 'comedy' series, tried Bridgerton - utter crap*. Other that that - nothing. Cancelled subscription. 2. Amazon Prime - enjoyed series 1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, lost interest in series 2. Have watched the occasional film. Only keeping the subscription due to Prime delivery.
But generally, BBC, ITV, C4 and the occasionally C5 have a great range of programming - BBC is what we watch most of.
Now, you could conclude that's cos we lack taste but as I said above it's eye of the beholder stuff.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
RIP A QUESTION OF SPORT. according to GB breaking news. The BBC were mad to axe Sue Barker
Yet another reason not to pay the BBC license
It is the below-inflation (and pledge-breaking) licence fee increase announced this week that has made the BBC look to axe expensive but failing shows like A Question of Sport. iirc they have a £90 million funding gap to fill.
Nonsense. It's making stupid decisions and axing popular presenters. It's the way the BBC is going. If the license fee went, the BBC would implode. Who would pay to watch the woke shite that is the BBC.
“Woke”
Can we add woke to the Conservative home banishment list along with colour me, says hi and the rest of them?
"Doing some heavy lifting" "Well-respected" "Ahem"
"Point of order Lord Copper"
I don't want anyone to stop though - I like the PBisms.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
I agree we are a bit like Italy, tho having recently toured inland Sicily I can say our Mezziogiorno is not remotely as poor as theirs. Parts of theirs are like Egypt, and that is not an exaggeration
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
The data’s right; your understanding isn’t.
It’s inequality, plain and simple. The guy in the middle is much better off in France whereas those few people at the top are much better off in the UK. The averages are more or less the same, but the money is spread more equitably in France.
The great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
That clip sums up in a nutshell why I am probably the only one on this website who thinks SKS will not win and the Tories have a fighting chance.
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
The data’s right; your understanding isn’t.
It’s inequality, plain and simple. The guy in the middle is much better off in France whereas those few people at the top are much better off in the UK.
Then explain Ireland
Absolutely no way their median household income is higher than Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg AND the USA, not if you actually go there and use your eyes
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
If they're saying that about Ireland then it proves that the numbers are not useful for making the point that @TimS is trying to make. Using actual individual consumption, which is less subject to statistical distortions, Ireland is still below the EU average.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
I agree we are a bit like Italy, tho having recently toured inland Sicily I can say our Mezziogiorno is not remotely as poor as theirs. Parts of theirs are like Egypt, and that is not an exaggeration
Not just the remote parts. Go to Naples and it feels like you should be in North Africa (and I’m not talking about the demographics nor the weather).
The great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
That clip sums up in a nutshell why I am probably the only one on this website who thinks SKS will not win and the Tories have a fighting chance.
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
The trouble is, Sunak's got collapse of May era written all over him. Constant relaunches, reboots, podia. Tears outside number 10 can't be too far off. So it's May vs. May.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
Ireland’s GDP data are massively distorted by corporate profits. Household income shouldn’t be though. But average household size in Ireland is 2.74 people, so it’s significantly higher than the UK or France. That could account for part of the difference.
The other thing, though orangemen might disagree, is that Ireland’s Mezzogiorno - Ulster - happens to be accounted for as part of the UK.
The other Tory attack that backfired this week was the Shapps/Lineker twitter spat, which meant news programmes had to explain why Gary Lineker called him "4 chaps Shapps".
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
I agree we are a bit like Italy, tho having recently toured inland Sicily I can say our Mezziogiorno is not remotely as poor as theirs. Parts of theirs are like Egypt, and that is not an exaggeration
Not just the remote parts. Go to Naples and it feels like you should be in North Africa (and I’m not talking about the demographics nor the weather).
Italy’s median household income per the same source is $35k, substantially lower than the UK and less than half the USA. Which bears this out.
The great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
That clip sums up in a nutshell why I am probably the only one on this website who thinks SKS will not win and the Tories have a fighting chance.
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
The trouble is, Sunak's got collapse of May era written all over him. Constant relaunches, reboots, podia. Tears outside number 10 can't be too far off. So it's May vs. May.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
If they're saying that about Ireland then it proves that the numbers are not useful for making the point that @TimS is trying to make. Using actual individual consumption, which is less subject to statistical distortions, Ireland is still below the EU average.
One of the micro-annoyances of Brexit is that Britain now gets greyed out in stat maps like this one.
The great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
That clip sums up in a nutshell why I am probably the only one on this website who thinks SKS will not win and the Tories have a fighting chance.
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
The trouble is, Sunak's got collapse of May era written all over him. Constant relaunches, reboots, podia. Tears outside number 10 can't be too far off. So it's May vs. May.
Which is why I don’t think Sunak lasts. My current thinking is he’s out within 6 months and the new leader immediately goes to the country (I think that will be Hunt).
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
Ireland’s GDP data are massively distorted by corporate profits. Household income shouldn’t be though. But average household size in Ireland is 2.74 people, so it’s significantly higher than the UK or France. That could account for part of the difference.
The other thing, though orangemen might disagree, is that Ireland’s Mezzogiorno - Ulster - happens to be accounted for as part of the UK.
It tells me all the data is rather dodgy, and to be handled with care
It should not be dismissed entirely, there is obviously some truth here. It *feels* right to me that France is somewhat richer than Britain now (on an average) - we were fecked by the Kredit Krunch, and we are still feeling our way back to a new model, they were less impacted. But I do not think the gulf is nearly as big as this table implies
Besides, this was not my point. It is performance in very recent years and from now on that concerns me
If Britain starts to outperform France and Germany that will turn received opinion on its head, esp on the Remainer Left. And of course this is almost inevitable, eventually, everything goes in cycles, and Britain is now significantly decoupled from the EU economy and has likely adapted to the rupture of Brexit. So we will diverge, sometimes do worse - but, yes, sometimes do better
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
If they're saying that about Ireland then it proves that the numbers are not useful for making the point that @TimS is trying to make. Using actual individual consumption, which is less subject to statistical distortions, Ireland is still below the EU average.
One of the micro-annoyances of Brexit is that Britain now gets greyed out in stat maps like this one.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
According to the ONS consumption per capita in 2019 was:
Germany 122 UK 113 France 109 Italy 99 Spain 91 Poland 79
In 2019, consumption per head in the UK, measured using actual individual consumption (AIC) per head, was equivalent to the seventh highest in the EU, equal to that of Finland and below the Netherlands and Belgium. This is according to new figures recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and compiled and released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, on 15 December 2020.
Of course wealth consumption is not the same as wealth creation and the UK does over consume.
Anecdotes about how rich or poor a country is based on personal experience are dangerous - you can find big extremes of wealth driving from one village to another across much of Yorkshire for example.
The other shocking thing in all the national stats - GDP, household income, consumption, assets, you name it, everything except life expectancy- is the way Japan has slumped, in a smooth, gentle downwards line since 1990. Now poorer than Italy and much of Eastern Europe.
The great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
The simple of question of the left is, always has been "Are you a traitor?". To quote the old saying :
The Left seeks traitors. The Right seeks converts.
It's an interesting lens to look through when reading history or current events. So Keir can or cannot answer a question. Or gives one answer one day, a different one the next. It's quite telling.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
Ireland’s GDP data are massively distorted by corporate profits. Household income shouldn’t be though. But average household size in Ireland is 2.74 people, so it’s significantly higher than the UK or France. That could account for part of the difference.
The other thing, though orangemen might disagree, is that Ireland’s Mezzogiorno - Ulster - happens to be accounted for as part of the UK.
It tells me all the data is rather dodgy, and to be handled with care
It should not be dismissed entirely, there is obviously some truth here. It *feels* right to me that France is somewhat richer than Britain now (on an average) - we were fecked by the Kredit Krunch, and we are still feeling our way back to a new model, they were less impacted. But I do not think the gulf is nearly as big as this table implies
Besides, this was not my point. It is performance in very recent years and from now on that concerns me
If Britain starts to outperform France and Germany that will turn received opinion on its head, esp on the Remainer Left. And of course this is almost inevitable, eventually, everything goes in cycles, and Britain is now significantly decoupled from the EU economy and has likely adapted to the rupture of Brexit. So we will diverge, sometimes do worse - but, yes, sometimes do better
Actually the point I was trying to make with my original reply - which I somewhat sidetracked by pointing to the absolute data - was the UK annual performance: steep rises till 2016 then flat ever since.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
According to the ONS consumption per capita in 2019 was:
Germany 122 UK 113 France 109 Italy 99 Spain 91 Poland 79
In 2019, consumption per head in the UK, measured using actual individual consumption (AIC) per head, was equivalent to the seventh highest in the EU, equal to that of Finland and below the Netherlands and Belgium. This is according to new figures recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and compiled and released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, on 15 December 2020.
Of course wealth consumption is not the same as wealth creation and the UK does over consume.
Anecdotes about how rich or poor a country is based on personal experience are dangerous - you can find big extremes of wealth driving from one village to another across much of Yorkshire for example.
Which gives the UK, and other countries, a surprising high place on consumer spending.
UK savings rate is 17%, France is 24%. So consumption as a percentage of GDP would be 83/76 x France. UK and French GDP per capita (unlike median household income) are virtually identical, so you’d actually expect consumption to be higher than 113/109 - but that may reflect the fact more of our GDP is corporate profits of foreign headquartered companies, like in Ireland.
EDIT: in 2022 we would be 107 for consumption apparently. So France caught up with us since 2019 on consumption
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
Richer areas tend to be expensive. Poorer areas tend to be cheap.
The ideal thing is to be rich in a cheap area. The worst thing is to be poor in an expensive area.
Poor in a cheap area is okay. Rich in an expensive area is okay.
The poor in an expensive area tend to be visible to outsiders - its usually big cities especially the capital city. The rich in a poor area tend to be invisible to outsiders - who visits old industrial areas they have no connection with ?
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
Richer areas tend to be expensive. Poorer areas tend to be cheap.
The ideal thing is to be rich in a cheap area. The worst thing is to be poor in an expensive area.
Poor in a cheap area is okay. Rich in an expensive area is okay.
The poor in an expensive area tend to be visible to outsiders - its usually big cities especially the capital city. The rich in a poor area tend to be invisible to outsiders - who visits old industrial areas they have no connection with ?
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The major detail you are missing is the definition of a median, which I suggest you go look up. When you understand it, you will see that much of your comment is gibberish.
Despite being right off my nipples, I understand the definition of median
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
Ireland’s GDP data are massively distorted by corporate profits. Household income shouldn’t be though. But average household size in Ireland is 2.74 people, so it’s significantly higher than the UK or France. That could account for part of the difference.
The other thing, though orangemen might disagree, is that Ireland’s Mezzogiorno - Ulster - happens to be accounted for as part of the UK.
It tells me all the data is rather dodgy, and to be handled with care
It should not be dismissed entirely, there is obviously some truth here. It *feels* right to me that France is somewhat richer than Britain now (on an average) - we were fecked by the Kredit Krunch, and we are still feeling our way back to a new model, they were less impacted. But I do not think the gulf is nearly as big as this table implies
Besides, this was not my point. It is performance in very recent years and from now on that concerns me
If Britain starts to outperform France and Germany that will turn received opinion on its head, esp on the Remainer Left. And of course this is almost inevitable, eventually, everything goes in cycles, and Britain is now significantly decoupled from the EU economy and has likely adapted to the rupture of Brexit. So we will diverge, sometimes do worse - but, yes, sometimes do better
Actually the point I was trying to make with my original reply - which I somewhat sidetracked by pointing to the absolute data - was the UK annual performance: steep rises till 2016 then flat ever since.
But using median statistics isn't the best way to make that point if the main variable is where you draw the line between the bottom 50% and the top 50%.
If the UK economy is finally beginning to decouple from the EU's, and actually perform notably better (certainly than France or Germany) then that is quite a game-changer
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. Do you believe that per capita purchasing power was that much higher in France than the UK before Brexit?
Yes. I’ve seen it myself. Living standards and disposable income are similar across the majority of provincial France to outer London and the Home Counties. And they had nothing like the recessionary contraction we did from the financial crisis.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
And I think it is nonsense. Provincial France sounds and looks nice (nicer than many chunks of the UK), and if you have a house in, say, the Burgundy region then it will certainly feel that France is considerably richer than the UK
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
The charts show a recovery in the UK from 2010 to 2016 following the financial crisis, so the base level in 2010 is a little suppressed. But the stats are the stats.
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
Comments
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tory-tweet-finger-middle-bbc-labour-immigration-attack-backfire-b1127271.html
Of course 35% was more than enough in 2005 though!
Germany did well during Covid so its performance after Covid doesn’t include any bounce back. But they are doing properly badly now and I think will do for some time.
"Well-respected"
"Ahem"
"BREAKING 🇦🇷 President Javier Milei announces a total crackdown on Argentine civil society, calling on armed forces to break strikes, arrest protestors, “protect” children from families that bring them to demos, and form a new national registry of all agitating organisations."
https://twitter.com/davidrkadler/status/1735666098127733129
Lots of ifs and buts there, of course. And UK growth is, it can be argued, largely based on clinically insane levels of net migration, nontheless it will be difficult for Remoaners if this becomes a THING
https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/median-household-income-in-france-2010---2021-/
Look at absolute numbers. Then look at the graph for each country, up to 2016 and then from 2016 onwards.
After the fantastic job she did of taking a bad exam system and making it worse, and taking a punitive school inspection system and making it into one both punishing and completely worthless, what could possibly go wrong?
Maybe you are just a bit thick
Britain has undoubtedly suffered from Brexit. Tho I would argue our under-performance dates more from the GFC
Either way it was the belief of Leavers like me that after initial pain, Brexit would start to benefit us, in comparison to the more sluggish EU - despite all the hassles with trade etc
That may just be happening, the first glimmers. Could be an illusion. Yet if it is the case it will upend the whole political debate as we’ve known it ever since 2016
And I hope the same happens to everyone else involved in spreading lies about election fraud. The mills of justice grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small.
Perhaps if this and similar cases had happened a year ago, they might just have gotten through to the brainwashed MAGA cultists.
That's all clear now
https://twitter.com/Hammer_On_X/status/1735711452168691753
word. Absolute quality
Everyone who was around him was either a nightmare themselves or found him a nightmare. Or both. This is neither irrelevant nor a coincidence.
Or as you put it the Green Tories FFS mate what are you on
Of course you could simply not bother with a license and watch it anyway, and tell anybody from TV Licence Enforcement who show up at your home to sod off, since they have no legal right of entry without your permission.
Shall we put you down as thinking the Greens are Tories as well?
TBH the meetings i have attended since joining, most of them are fellow Socialists, but hey Dr PhD must know best
And that's said without malice.
Edit - and being an admirer of Putin's followers doesn't exactly help your case for being a good socialist.
I think it’s hard living in inner London to appreciate just how poor most of our country is.
Interesting?
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/green-party-deal-puts-tories-26884628
The idea that you’re a “socialist” is laughable given your output on here and your membership of an opportunistic pressure group that will jump into bed with any party.
Average incomes aren’t that different in the UK and France.
Median incomes - which is what you are looking at in those links - are very significantly higher in France.
The reason is that a significantly greater proportion of the UK’s total income goes to the more wealthy - I.E. the Uk is significantly more unequal - hence the guy (or gal) in the middle of the range is significantly worse off in Britain (as are those nearer the bottom, although this doesn’t show from that data).
This also shows in regional data - London is a high income area, whereas the North East has an average income lower than some parts of former communist Eastern Europe.
Simple yes or no will suffice.
TIA
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lancaster-city-council-tory-green-party-b1849425.html
For sure if we start to perform much better than the EU then the narrative around Brexit will change. But that isn't happening yet, and to my mind is quite unlikely to happen.
I also assume that a man who has infamously never told the truth in his life, promotes neo-Nazi conspiracy theories and schills for Fascist regimes will not be telling the truth. But you don't make that assumption. Because he fits your prejudices.
Something really unpleasant has happened to you, and it's frankly disturbing to watch. It's Plato with added nastiness.
As are you.
I’d guess the Ukrainian response includes people wanting Crimea back.
Oh dear
How sad
Never mind
And yet if you go to the bainlieues around Lyon, Marseille or Paris, or in the east, then France will feel a lot poorer, and in places poorer than the UK
As for these precise figures. I am wary. What is this median household fandangle? Is it simply what it says on the tin? The median average income for every household? Then there might several explanations for a disparity
eg Single person households. Britain has many more than France, 30% of our households are single person, as aganst just 17% in France. That would surely bring down the median a fuck of a lot?
I may be missing some major detail. Am still quite stoned and listening to neo-folk
I would like to apologise, very humbly and sincerely, for comparing the Tories to the Greens, and I hope any Tories who were offended will forgive me.
From its inception until probably the early-2000s it could pretty much guarantee regular big names - playing or retired. It would be a disappointment when they had a jockey (except Dettori) or a swimmer on. Now? If you look at the episode guide if you've heard of people it's largely if they were around 20 years ago. Leon Osman appeared twice!
Todays sports stars, unless they are reaching retirement and starting a media career so are saying 'yes' to everything, simply don't feel the need. Their schedules are more demanding, and they do a lot of media work of their own - either for themselves or promoting clubs and sponsors.
If they do want to build a media career they have umpteen options - podcasts, streaming, and Sky. The latter who have in some ways killed QoS with A League of Their Own. Which took the basic idea, zazzed it up, threw money at it to secure big names and used Sky's roster of pundits. The BBC can't compete with their budget these days. They could get Flintoff to do Top Gear, with its big budget due to its commercial value, but not QoS. Nor arguably should they.
It's sad. But everything comes to an end. And QoS has probably lasted far longer than it would or should have done without the residual affection for what it once was.
They can hardly be worse in terms of image, general competence and presentation.
They have a chance of reviewing sanely the Brexit situation.
SKS is now, SFAICS, hated by the left.
He has a reasonably decent team around him.
He can't chuck away cash because he hasn't any.
He isn't going to try to pass bills declaring North Korea to be a safe country and try to oust the court's jurisdiction.
There isn't a One Nation Tory party available. He is the nearest thing we have.
Labour does not talk in populist cliches, on the whole.
It may be a passing phenomenon, if it is not, then it changes a lot
Italy's performance is interesting, what has gone right for them, all of a sudden? I thought they were fucked by Russian energy prices/non supply
Quite a remarkable decline, and Messrs Daniels and Beam must take their share of the blame.
We have tried subscriptions to:
1. Netflix - enjoyed Queens Gambit, the first few series of the Crown (the last two have been utter shite), tried Schitt's Creek - a one joke 'comedy' series, tried Bridgerton - utter crap*. Other that that - nothing. Cancelled subscription.
2. Amazon Prime - enjoyed series 1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, lost interest in series 2. Have watched the occasional film. Only keeping the subscription due to Prime delivery.
But generally, BBC, ITV, C4 and the occasionally C5 have a great range of programming - BBC is what we watch most of.
Now, you could conclude that's cos we lack taste but as I said above it's eye of the beholder stuff.
(*Surely 'wokier' than any BBC programme too.)
Are households on average larger in France than the UK? 2.18 in France, 2.4 here. So it’s not larger households. Do more households have 2 income earners in France? Quite possibly, but I don’t have the data.
Median household income in the US is $74k by the way, so they put us both in the shade. And that’s median, so despite their inequality, their unaffordable healthcare, their low life expectancy, they’re still almost twice as rich per median household than we are.
Britain has some extremely poor areas. That’s the issue. It’s why levelling up is a thing. We’re like Italy with the Mezzogiorno only our Mezzogiorno is colder and damper. Whereas London (and its banlieue) is one of the richest places in Europe.
https://inequalitybriefing.org/graphics/briefing_43_UK_regions_poorest_North_Europe.pdf
The formation of households may be different in France (I offer one reason above), leading to this curious disparity
They may be other shady statitical work afoot, that same page claims that the country with the "fifth highest median income" is..... Ireland.
Ireland??
Higher than the USA, Austria or Luxembourg, higher than Denmark, Switzerland, Australia?? Apparently so
I've been to Ireland, I've been to Switzerland. lol
Something ain't right with the data
I don't want anyone to stop though - I like the PBisms.
"Ireland"
lol
I agree we are a bit like Italy, tho having recently toured inland Sicily I can say our Mezziogiorno is not remotely as poor as theirs. Parts of theirs are like Egypt, and that is not an exaggeration
It’s inequality, plain and simple. The guy in the middle is much better off in France whereas those few people at the top are much better off in the UK. The averages are more or less the same, but the money is spread more equitably in France.
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
Absolutely no way their median household income is higher than Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg AND the USA, not if you actually go there and use your eyes
The other thing, though orangemen might disagree, is that Ireland’s Mezzogiorno - Ulster - happens to be accounted for as part of the UK.
It should not be dismissed entirely, there is obviously some truth here. It *feels* right to me that France is somewhat richer than Britain now (on an average) - we were fecked by the Kredit Krunch, and we are still feeling our way back to a new model, they were less impacted. But I do not think the gulf is nearly as big as this table implies
Besides, this was not my point. It is performance in very recent years and from now on that concerns me
If Britain starts to outperform France and Germany that will turn received opinion on its head, esp on the Remainer Left. And of course this is almost inevitable, eventually, everything goes in cycles, and Britain is now significantly decoupled from the EU economy and has likely adapted to the rupture of Brexit. So we will diverge, sometimes do worse - but, yes, sometimes do better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVsR5tpf38
Germany 122
UK 113
France 109
Italy 99
Spain 91
Poland 79
In 2019, consumption per head in the UK, measured using actual individual consumption (AIC) per head, was equivalent to the seventh highest in the EU, equal to that of Finland and below the Netherlands and Belgium. This is according to new figures recorded by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and compiled and released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, on 15 December 2020.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/actualindividualconsumptionperheadintheuk/2019
Of course wealth consumption is not the same as wealth creation and the UK does over consume.
Anecdotes about how rich or poor a country is based on personal experience are dangerous - you can find big extremes of wealth driving from one village to another across much of Yorkshire for example.
There's also this:
https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1156460/real-consumer-spending-per-capita-by-country
Which gives the UK, and other countries, a surprising high place on consumer spending.
(Equally of Rishi).
https://x.com/humanbollard/status/1735715925779710128?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
EDIT: in 2022 we would be 107 for consumption apparently. So France caught up with us since 2019 on consumption
https://x.com/bergaslak/status/1735777076928479608?s=46
Poorer areas tend to be cheap.
The ideal thing is to be rich in a cheap area.
The worst thing is to be poor in an expensive area.
Poor in a cheap area is okay.
Rich in an expensive area is okay.
The poor in an expensive area tend to be visible to outsiders - its usually big cities especially the capital city.
The rich in a poor area tend to be invisible to outsiders - who visits old industrial areas they have no connection with ?