“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
My parents did not read to me. You might be looking at this through middle class blinkers. Teaching children to read is the school's job (or the television's) not the parents. You might be right that it would help if parents did read to their children.
I could not disagree with you more forcefully - it is never television's job to do the parenting, and if it is "middle class" to read to children, then that's part of the class divide, because reading is so incredibly important.
Schools have a critical role to play in education, but if a child isn't read to when they're young then they're starting school behind their peers and with a more limited vocabulary than their peers.
And if a child doesn't read for pleasure then they're even further behind, and the bug of wanting to read for pleasure in no small part is instilled by whether or not parents read to them when they were young.
That's not seeking to besmirch your parents, I'm sure they were loving in other ways, but it is a crucial things for parents to do and not doing it is a real shame.
Not to disagree with the sentiment (which I don't) but there is a 'causation v correlation' angle here. It might not always be the actual experience of being read to by your parents that gives you the marked advantage. It might to an extent be that if your parents are reading to you they are more likely to be both proactive in your development and living ordered, reasonably comfortable lives. So if you assume it's all direct causation you'll probably overegg the importance of the act itself.
The only thing the next Labour government needs to do is simple: build more houses.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
They won't, but they should abolish or seriously reform planning to enable people to build houses crashing the planning premium that currently exists that makes land with permission worth potentially 10x to 100x land without it.
Its not land we have a shortage of in this country, its permission, which is why land with permission is so valuable and land without is not.
Address that, the housing crisis would be solved within a few years.
There's no divine reason to require planning consent. Prior to the mistake of introducing it, England had no shortage of housing as people would just build houses whenever they were needed and land was only about 2% of the cost of housing at the time. Now land is about a third of the value of the house.
Bring land back down to 2% of the value of the house, and housing costs would plummet and people would be far, far better off.
Honestly, the planning system really isn’t the problem.
Honestly, it is.
If the planning system wasn't the problem, then getting planning permission wouldn't inflate the value of land, since permission would be next-to-worthless since it wasn't a problem to get.
Without it, there would be no "hope premium" or "permission premium".
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I can always forgive the towering literary genius behind Career Girls.
It’s much funnier when you know most of the people in the book
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
I think that every election with a large swing generates a few unexpected MPs, many of whom weren’t very well vetted. We saw it in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and will likely see it again in 2024. I still have to laugh when it comes out that some new MP said something horrifically racist on Twitter a decade ago - the parties are all terrible at vetting their candidates, and the candidates themselves are terrible at deleting stuff they don’t want to be public, before announcing their candidacy.
I think you'll find that Labour's due diligence is pretty thorough, even ruthless, for its GE 24 candidates - especially in its 'winnable' seats. That's not to say the odd one won't slip through, especially if there's a Labour landslide. Part of Starmer's attention to detail.
The Tories are going to lose so many council seats in May. These seats were the ones that should have been contested in 2020, but elections were delayed until 2021 because of Covid. The Tories did very well that year, NEV was Con 40%, Lab 30%. A repeat of 2023 would mean an 8 or 9% swing* - shellacking territory.
Using this as a stepping stone to an autumn election would be a less than ideal strategy for Sunak.
The header is excellent, and your post is excellent too.
If it’s not May 2, the long Summer and Autumn of the country waiting for it will be set against the Tories local election disaster and bottled it vibe.
The argument that people will feel better off later in the year has to be compared to extra time over the summer merely allows more government promises to fall apart, such as immigration, NHS, borrowing, growth.
the extra time actually gives Labour and opposition more time to explain the tax cuts have actually been funded by borrowing, not growth - whilst social services, NHS, education, the environment, infrastructure is actually falling apart.
Wasn’t Labour also badly damaged by bottling the 1978 election - ironically hanging on for better economic news but ending up with a worse reputation with which to fight the 1979 election?
The only thing the next Labour government needs to do is simple: build more houses.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
They won't, but they should abolish or seriously reform planning to enable people to build houses crashing the planning premium that currently exists that makes land with permission worth potentially 10x to 100x land without it.
Its not land we have a shortage of in this country, its permission, which is why land with permission is so valuable and land without is not.
Address that, the housing crisis would be solved within a few years.
There's no divine reason to require planning consent. Prior to the mistake of introducing it, England had no shortage of housing as people would just build houses whenever they were needed and land was only about 2% of the cost of housing at the time. Now land is about a third of the value of the house.
Bring land back down to 2% of the value of the house, and housing costs would plummet and people would be far, far better off.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
I think that every election with a large swing generates a few unexpected MPs, many of whom weren’t very well vetted. We saw it in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and will likely see it again in 2024. I still have to laugh when it comes out that some new MP said something horrifically racist on Twitter a decade ago - the parties are all terrible at vetting their candidates, and the candidates themselves are terrible at deleting stuff they don’t want to be public, before announcing their candidacy.
I think you'll find that Labour's due diligence is pretty thorough, even ruthless, for its GE 24 candidates - especially in its 'winnable' seats. That's not to say the odd one won't slip through, especially if there's a Labour landslide. Part of Starmer's attention to detail.
Let’s hope so, and to be fair to Starmer he has indeed been good at party management since taking over as leader. It does only need a handful of idiots to scrape though unexpectedly though.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
I think that every election with a large swing generates a few unexpected MPs, many of whom weren’t very well vetted. We saw it in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and will likely see it again in 2024. I still have to laugh when it comes out that some new MP said something horrifically racist on Twitter a decade ago - the parties are all terrible at vetting their candidates, and the candidates themselves are terrible at deleting stuff they don’t want to be public, before announcing their candidacy.
I think you'll find that Labour's due diligence is pretty thorough, even ruthless, for its GE 24 candidates - especially in its 'winnable' seats. That's not to say the odd one won't slip through, especially if there's a Labour landslide. Part of Starmer's attention to detail.
Let’s hope so, and to be fair to Starmer he has indeed been good at party management since taking over as leader. It does only need a handful of idiots to scrape though unexpectedly though.
“Due diligence” is a different thing in 2020s than the past though - it’s probably not even achievable. Two decades of social media posts.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Being useless (as well as being not that uncommon) cannot possibly be worse than being corrupt or mendacious or in the pocket of a foreign power.
O'Mara was more than just useless though - and useless to a degree way beyond the normal duffer MP: he didn't ask a single question in the House during his 2 years. But he certainly was corrupt and mendacious, to the point of being sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment for fraud.
It is certainly possible to argue that other MPs have actively done the country more damage (not least because O'Mara did very little of his job anyway); it is easy to argue that some have served longer for more serious crimes (and that still others should have done); but in terms of overall failure to do every aspect the job of an MP - serially breaking standards and trusts along the way - there's a good case that O'Mara stands above all others as the worst in living memory.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Being useless (as well as being not that uncommon) cannot possibly be worse than being corrupt or mendacious or in the pocket of a foreign power.
O'Mara was more than just useless though - and useless to a degree way beyond the normal duffer MP: he didn't ask a single question in the House during his 2 years. But he certainly was corrupt and mendacious, to the point of being sentenced to 4 years' imprisonment for fraud.
It is certainly possible to argue that other MPs have actively done the country more damage (not least because O'Mara did very little of his job anyway); it is easy to argue that some have served longer for more serious crimes (and that still others should have done); but in terms of overall failure to do every aspect the job of an MP - serially breaking standards and trusts along the way - there's a good case that O'Mara stands above all others as the worst in living memory.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I can always forgive the towering literary genius behind Career Girls.
It’s much funnier when you know most of the people in the book
Do you have Topaz Rossi's number? (I assume Rowena Gordon is autobiographical).
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
No, because Trump didn't really understand how the politics of dictatorship works. Fortunately, he still doesn't - though he understands it better.
As well as the points needed above is, crucially, a toleration of violence against those the system deems to be social outsiders. See the South, blacks and the Klan for an example. Or Russia, now.
How do you turn any country into a dictatorship while preserving a figleaf of democracy and the rule of law in the constitution? Intimidation. You have to prove that there is a price to be paid for going against the regime, and that the system of law will act on the side of the regime, not on the letter of the law. And you have to create the expectation that there *will* be a price to be paid.
The bottom line is what ability the other institutional pillars of a democracy have to resist the takeover? The judiciary, the military, local government, etc. If they have already been captured, or the government can control them by giving orders, through power over appointments and dismissals, or can use extra-democratic means to enforce their will (aka beating people up, and worse), then our defences against dictatorship are extremely fragile.
Any system is no stronger than the individuals who comprise it
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
No, because Trump didn't really understand how the politics of dictatorship works. Fortunately, he still doesn't - though he understands it better.
As well as the points needed above is, crucially, a toleration of violence against those the system deems to be social outsiders. See the South, blacks and the Klan for an example. Or Russia, now.
How do you turn any country into a dictatorship while preserving a figleaf of democracy and the rule of law in the constitution? Intimidation. You have to prove that there is a price to be paid for going against the regime, and that the system of law will act on the side of the regime, not on the letter of the law. And you have to create the expectation that there *will* be a price to be paid.
In 2016 Trump was a chancer; now he thinks that winning in 2024 is his hope for staying out of prison, potentially for life, and has people around him who may know something about what they are doing.
He does not believe in the basics of US democracy - separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, federal vs state separation - and is arguing that a President in power should be entirely above the law.
His organisation has plans to use Executive Powers inappropriately to destroy everyone - elected reps, DOJ employees, judges and all the rest - who he thinks has been against him or who will stand in his way.
It's the playbook of every aspiring Dictator who wants to take over a democracy; I think you will find parallels with Lukaschenko, Mugabe, even the early days of Hitler in the early 1930s.
I think it also says things about how vulnerable a US democratic system which still has one foot the 18C has become, but that's one for another time after Trump has been safely locked up.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
Rahman, of course, stood again as soon as he could and was elected.
I think the thing about "Trying to disqualify DJT from standing" is that it is a mistake to merely see it as a political tactic. There is (poorly-phrased) text in the US Constitution that (possibly) applies. Even if 99.9% of people think it isn't going to help, you only need 1 person to bring a case and then the courts have to come up with an answer. So whether you think it is a wise move politically or not, the country is stuck with the law it has. (Such are the dangers of writing bad law!)
Trump has been found guilty of election related offences - the Supreme Court of Colorado has determined that he engaged in insurrection.
As now has the Secretary of State for Maine.
Both have left time for the US Supreme Court to intervene.
Comments
If the planning system wasn't the problem, then getting planning permission wouldn't inflate the value of land, since permission would be next-to-worthless since it wasn't a problem to get.
Without it, there would be no "hope premium" or "permission premium".
NEW THREAD
If it’s not May 2, the long Summer and Autumn of the country waiting for it will be set against the Tories local election disaster and bottled it vibe.
The argument that people will feel better off later in the year has to be compared to extra time over the summer merely allows more government promises to fall apart, such as immigration, NHS, borrowing, growth.
the extra time actually gives Labour and opposition more time to explain the tax cuts have actually been funded by borrowing, not growth - whilst social services, NHS, education, the environment, infrastructure is actually falling apart.
Wasn’t Labour also badly damaged by bottling the 1978 election - ironically hanging on for better economic news but ending up with a worse reputation with which to fight the 1979 election?
It is certainly possible to argue that other MPs have actively done the country more damage (not least because O'Mara did very little of his job anyway); it is easy to argue that some have served longer for more serious crimes (and that still others should have done); but in terms of overall failure to do every aspect the job of an MP - serially breaking standards and trusts along the way - there's a good case that O'Mara stands above all others as the worst in living memory.
He does not believe in the basics of US democracy - separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, federal vs state separation - and is arguing that a President in power should be entirely above the law.
His organisation has plans to use Executive Powers inappropriately to destroy everyone - elected reps, DOJ employees, judges and all the rest - who he thinks has been against him or who will stand in his way.
It's the playbook of every aspiring Dictator who wants to take over a democracy; I think you will find parallels with Lukaschenko, Mugabe, even the early days of Hitler in the early 1930s.
I think it also says things about how vulnerable a US democratic system which still has one foot the 18C has become, but that's one for another time after Trump has been safely locked up.
As now has the Secretary of State for Maine.
Both have left time for the US Supreme Court to intervene.