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An MPs behaviour – now the main trigger for Westminster by-elections – politicalbetting.com
An MPs behaviour – now the main trigger for Westminster by-elections – politicalbetting.com
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/mortgages/mortgage-bills-fall-160-month-banks-new-year-rate-war/
“Lenders have kicked off a new year “mortgage rates war” amid hopes the Bank of England will cut borrowing costs.
“One of Britain’s biggest mortgage providers, Halifax, cut the rates on some of its mortgages by as much as 0.92 percentage points Tuesday – equivalent to £162 a month on a £300,000 loan with 25 years’ of repayments left.”
Yet almost everyone who is renewing their mortgage at the moment, is going to find that their actual monthly repayment is up massively over their existing deal - which is all that they actually care about.
It’s great that everyone says life is awesome, but your average person is now seeing a lot more month left at the end of the money, than they did before the pandemic.
I've just come back from my first pre-dawn run for many months, during which I saw a fox, a deer, a bat and an owl (not at the same time). These were all in suburban areas of the town.
And suddenly, for the first time in a couple of weeks, I feel very happy.
Number of new elementary school students set to hit record low
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=366226
..In Seoul, the number of children entering elementary school this year will be 59,492, down 10.3 percent from a year earlier. The number has been declining sharply from 78,118 in 2019 and 66,324 in 2023.
The number of new elementary schoolers is anticipated to show a faster drop in coming years because the number of newborns is plummeting quickly.
The number of children who were born in 2019 was 302,676, down from 357,771 in 2017 and 326,822 in 2018.
Given that the number of new elementary schoolers is anticipated to stand at 90 percent of the total number of eligible children, the number of those who enter elementary school in 2026 will likely stand below 300,000, just two years after the number plunged below the 400,000 mark in 2024.
Against that backdrop, the government has set the low birthrate as one of the main policy priorities that it will concentrate on this year.
"We need a completely different approach as we look for the causes and find solutions to the problem," President Yoon Suk Yeol said during his New Year speech. "We must find out the real reasons for the low birthrate and identify effective measures.".
A socially conservative government is highly unlikely to find rapid or effective solutions to the problem, I think - and the time to take it seriously would have been a decade ago.
We should be watching this closely, as if we do decide massively to limit immigration, it's not inconceivable we'll face something similar in time.
A very slowly declining birth rate is probably not a serious matter. A fast decline promises unavoidable and continuing economic shocks.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/claudine-gay-resign-harvard/
She was the one who told Congress that it was perfectly fine to call for the genocide of Jews on campus, leading to a donor boycott of the university - then it turned out that much of her own academic work was dubious at best, and plagiarised at worst.
Someone has done a passenger flow map for every railway station in the UK. The results are quite fascinating - at least for this train nerd.
https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/station.md
There’s a lot of support for Nature improving our mood and we don’t have to head into the remotest wilds to find it, as you have encountered this morning.
The nearest I could find is the bottom line of the following image. But the source sets my nose twitching a little.
https://twitter.com/HerrDr8/status/1742361506275033329/photo/2
Does anyone know if definitive figures are publicly available?
I have found my mood immeasurably better from switching off the News. Entirely for 2 months. I disengaged from all social media, including this site, didn’t read any newspapers or feeds, and tried to engage with Nature. I’ve no idea what happened in the previous 2 months in the outside world. I realised that I can’t change it so what’s the point in stressing about it? And it’s wonderful not to be involved in any disagreements, or even arguments, with people I’ve never met and don’t really know.
I’m heading abroad soon for a lengthy period, including some time connecting with Nature and fairly remote, and I don’t intend following so-called “News” there either.
Here are some more hopes, no doubt mostly unrealistic, especially in an election year, but anyway:
- we should finally get serious about prioritising economic growth for the first time in decades. Our politicians have been lazy and complacent about it for too long. Ever since Cameron talked about sharing the proceeds of growth, thereby ensuring there would be none, we haven't had a decent growth agenda in this country. Politicians have prioritised short term vote winning over long-term expansion. But the economy can't forever absorb whatever damage they inflict on it, and it won't keep powering on regardless.
- related, we need to expand our stock of decent homes. I know I always bang this drum, but removing restrictions to self-build, which is far lower here than in Continental Europe, is the obvious first step. It is not only desirable in itself, but it would also stimulate economic growth. Axing more of the obvious absurdities in the planning system, like thousand page bat studies, would also help. And a full attack on the architectural profession, to make them design houses that people actually want to look at, couldn't do any harm either.
- we need to rebuild many public services, starting, imho, with the Army, which is in such a shocking state that the Americans don't think it's battle-ready, and would need perhaps a decade to make it so. Again, a long-term project, with no votes in it, but it is a good time to do it, with lessons from the Ukraine war ready to be incorporated in our defence. I'm not sure the answer is increasing expenditure - it could just be getting more value for what we do spend, through better procurement, but I'm willing to be argued out of that view.
- the criminal justice system is likewise stretched to breaking point. Personally, I incline to the view of a former home secretary, that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse, so I am sympathetic to ending, or at least greatly reducing, prison sentences for low level crimes. But again, I'm willing to be dissuaded. And the courts and the police likely do need more resources.
I could list more, but if we can make meaningful progress on those this year, 2024 won't be yet another wasted twelve months.
And if pigs could fly ...
Why not shove ha'penny or Scottish football if we're obsessing about pub games/pub leagues?
Though some of the hyperbolic reporting is undeniably entertaining.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/jan/02/teenager-luke-littler-crushes-rob-cross-to-storm-to-world-darts-final
... But at half past nine on the second evening of 2024, the future spectacularly and violently mutated into the present..
...throwing with the menace and relish of a kid who just knows, down to his very bones, that his darts can cash every cheque his hubris writes.
...If you want to measure the strength of a storm, you check the historical record, you survey the destruction and levelled buildings it leaves in its wake. You don’t thrust a microphone into the breeze and ask it to explain itself.
... But this is Littler’s world now, and somehow everyone else in it – past, present and future – feels ornamental...
They want to flush that great Brexit turd.
When Alexander III of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer, Eric Bristow's only 27.
Actually that's over two thirds of the country.
Why not just chill out and come to terms with it.
SKS is no different than Sunak.
Flanders and Swann's Ostrich Song came to mind:
Boo-ka-Pee, they can't see me
As long as I've got me head in the sand
Peek-a-Boo, it may be true
There's something in what you've said
But we've got enough troubles in everyday life
I just bury me....
(BOOM)
From a sheltered oasis a mile away
I observed that dreadful scene
And a single plume came floating down
Where my Ostrich friend had been
Because he could not bear the sound
Of these words I had left unsaid;
'Here in this nuclear testing ground
Is no place to bury your head!'
A majority of Britons would support joining the single market, even if this meant free movement of people
All Britons
Support: 57%
Oppose: 22%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1729828017373843530
Those Brexit = Prohibition analogies prove truer with each passing day.
Have I missed something? I’ve never seen such an analogy! Although on reflection……
No they are not the same. Did you see the waiting list chart over successive Labour and Tory governments? A very stark difference. If you care about NHS waiting lists you know what to do.
There should be a deal with Doctors that they pay no tuition fees but can't go abroad for x yrs after qualifying.
So even if SKS is no different than Sunak you may as well go for SKS because Rishi has undoubtly upset most people for 1 reason or another...
No one is happy that the strikes are resuming, but there are no negotiations at the moment to stop them.
Or, put another way, do you think any of the cases that we have had are spurious?
As for Starmer, I'm reasonably sure he'll find ways to mess up entirely different from the current shower. But I will reserve judgment until he's actually been running the government.
https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/L/LEI-rail.png
https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/M/MMO-rail.png
Weve had 8 years to forget the downsides of the EU - no budget bust ups like at present, or additional legislation we dont need, no Macron trying to boss everyone about. Put the reality back in the mix and watch those numbers change.
Thisis like people remembering how the war brought us all together but forgetting the nightly bombings, rationing and deaths.
Edit - I can find Landywood and Bloxwich North, so it’s not all of them.
Very sorry to hear about your father in law, obvs, and I don't disagree with some kind of "protected employment" category where strikes would be subject to some kind of administrative restraint. Not exactly free market but a government needs to be able to ensure the well-being of its citizens given the current NHS structure.
Of course the NHS needs root and branch reform, as some may know is my view, and interestingly, watching Mr Bates vs The Post Office, there is a lot of talk of a "National Institution" being fallible. I suppose we have had (comparable? worse?) scandal after scandal in the NHS and still people venerate it but I suppose one can hope its day will come at some point.
https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/C/CAO-rail.png
https://github.com/anisotropi4/kingfisher/blob/main/image/H/HNF-rail.png
Hmmm. I wonder if the issue is the Github interface: the one you and @Foxy are reporting missing are all in the right-hand of the two columns. What device are you viewing it on?
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1742270519972421750
#Putin said similar in 2002: “I am absolutely convinced that #Ukraine will not shy away from processes of expanding interaction with #NATO and Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO... At end of day the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine.”
https://twitter.com/steven_pifer/status/1742389514352656655
What changed is that the Ukrainian people kicked out his puppets.
Is that how you are saying democracy should operate.
I'll continue shooting you down.
Al.
Other things changed too. In 2002 Russia was allied to NATO over the Afghan invasion and considered an ally in the ‘war on terror.’ That has to put it mildly changed somewhat.
But it’s also possible they said that knowing the Russian puppets would never sign up, so they could make the right noises and not actually have to follow through.
This is the Tories basic problem - they're shit at governing. They can't actually achieve any of their stated goals, so now they're into barefaced lies. Remember how Sunak would wield the Sword of Truth?
I expect this will ramp up as we move through the next months and gear up for the election. Another "aren't things brilliant" line from a Tory, followed by "no" by the public, then "look, culture war issue!!!" from GBeebies et al.
If you are a Tory, what do you do? You can't lie - people no longer swallow them as their lived experience disagrees with the lie. You can't say "Labour have no plan / would be worse" as people just laugh. At you. You can't try and get people excited by easter eggs as even your local paper mocks you. Even Twitter corrects the PM.
If - as clearly is the case - you have given up governing the country, do what @AverageNinja did yesterday - resign.
The Israeli government thinking an African country might be a dumping ground for forcibly displaced people is just the darkest historical irony
“The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister-site Zman Yisrael reports that Israeli officials have held clandestine talks with the African nation of Congo and several others for the potential acceptance of Gaza emigrants.”
https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom/status/1742455077489492360
but there were huge dividends.
Ukraine's EU trade deal will be catastrophic, says Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/ukraine-european-union-trade-russia
..Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine's former trade minister, gave Sergei Glazyev, adviser to President Vladimir Putin, a public dressing down in a discussion session during which the Kremlin man was faced with jeering and catcalls for demanding that Ukraine abandon the EU pact and turn to Russia. The minister said that it was the Kremlin's heavy-handed tactics and threats of a trade war that had made European integration inevitable.
"For the first time in our history more than 50% of people support European integration, and less than 30% of the people support closer ties with Russia," said Poroshenko. "Thank you very much for that Mr Glazyev."..
.."We don't want to use any kind of blackmail. This is a question for the Ukrainian people," said Glazyev. "But legally, signing this agreement about association with EU, the Ukrainian government violates the treaty on strategic partnership and friendship with Russia." When this happened, he said, Russia could no longer guarantee Ukraine's status as a state and could possibly intervene if pro-Russian regions of the country appealed directly to Moscow...
"I don't want to blackmail you, but..."
Which is wrong of course because in 2017 MPs were voted in by their constituents to voice their opinions in parliament and at that point there was no majority for a "clean Brexit" whatever that is. So all the obfuscation was a feature of democracy, not a bug and was ordered by the British people.
Until they got fed up with it of course and decided to get Brexit done after all. Again, by voting in a parliament to do this.
But some people really don't like democracy, we have seen.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/4385605-us-rebukes-irresponsible-comments-from-israeli-ministers/
But as you point out to Topping, we live in a democracy, so we're free to mix up what we like when deciding how to vote.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1742310316484997409/photo/1
And talking of numbers I have set aside today to do a tax return. So have fun.
Much like a good traffic enforcement camera is one that results in a lot of fines being issued, but a great one is one that results in no fines being issued, because it ends the activity it's targeting.
And looking at the very large dataset I have for other people - nope I don’t see it, except at the very bottom of the market where I can see another large pay rise coming in April because the agencies legally need to pay it
Liverpool with an XG of 7 the other night, or the 2019 cricket world cup final, that's sport at its utter magnificent best.
If a chubby teenager lobbing arrows in front of baying crowds of boozers in such a way that puts the Dutch right back in their box, doesn't stir your blood and stiffen your patriotic sinews, then you might as well just eff off.