Speaking of perfidious Albionian appropriation of the culture heritage of others, just discovered that you Brits have sunk to copying US TV via cheap knockoff of that beloved American institution - "Jeopardy".
How the worm has turned! Indeed, the World Turned Upside Down.
Though do think that Stephen Fry makes a damn good quiz-master.
BUT does NOT absolve yez from inventing "The Apprentice" as part of sinister trans-Atlantic plot to make Donald Trump POTUS!!!
The program "The Apprentice" was invented in the US[1], @SeaShantyIrish2 Although we did invent television, no matter what Americans are taught in school.
Apple TV’s new Godzilla series: Monarch, Legacy of Monsters, is a hoot
Completely ridiculous but really well done. Excellent escapism so far (I’m on ep 3)
I have watched Leave The World Behind and thought it absolute rubbish, poorly written, badly acted, superfluous special effects. Probably better as a stage play.
Has anyone else watched any 1670? Was it made as a drama documentary?
Apart from Slow Horses, what else is actually good at the moment?
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
That is a slight exaggeration. Although he usually brought his own special twist to any disaster or chaos he oversaw it is not as if the Conservative Party is short of incompetents.
Here is my stab at the comp. Hope it’s not too late. Thanks for your good work. 1. The smallest Labour lead 10% 2. Date of election 3 October 3. Party Leaders as now (BORING) 4. Labour 136 Majority 5. Haley and Biden 6. Biden (are you sure?) 7. Base rate 4.0% 8. CPI 2.9% 9. Borrowing £96 billion 10. Medals 57
Another Haley prediction.
Glad I've got a few £ on her if the PB hive mind is correct.
I really wanted to say anyone but Trump, but the pessimist in me has just priced him, and another win, in now. I’ll be delighted to be wrong, and for him to wind up ineligible to even stand.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
So long as they don’t appoint Dura himself, we should be OK.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The House chock-a-block full of Jacob Rees Moggs. At least Johnson couldn't have afforded to live on a tutelage wage.
We actually had a group of very capable lib dem councillors, one of whom was a friend, and they were as far away from the idiotic JRM then you could get
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
That is a slight exaggeration. Although he usually brought his own special twist to any disaster or chaos he oversaw it is not as if the Conservative Party is short of incompetents.
What could Grayling do after the election? Selling Dover to Calais crossings on invisible ferries, perhaps.
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
I don’t believe Chris Grayling will be capable of successfully retiring. Hell cock it up and stay in the House.
"In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role"
WTF? News to me and 341m of my fellow Americans!
For example, who in the world thinks that RICK PERRY, Trump's Secretary of Energy, was "the best" in THAT field. Or any freaking field for that matter?
And IF you think I'm merely slagging on #45, then consider the tenure of #16's first Secretary of War:
Tidbit from History - When Abraham Lincoln was awaiting inauguration and making his initial cabinet picks, he asked congressman Thaddeus Stevens for his opinion re: fellow Pennsylvanian Simon Cameron.
Well, Stevens replied, I'm pretty sure that he would NOT steal a hot stove.
Which was such a good joke (about a Bad Joke) that Abe just had to repeat it to others . . . with result that it Cameron soon heard about it . . . and was NOT amused.
Next time Stevens met with POTUS-Elect, Lincoln told him of Cameron's displeasure, and asked if Thad would mind taking back his witticism.
OK, said Stevens, upon mature reflection - I do think that he WOULD steal a hot stove.
Abe laughed even louder, but still appointed Cameron as head of the War Department - at a rather critical juncture in American history.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The problem with this is that many councils end up as an antiquated social club full of retired people, lots of long meetings and daytime commitments that exclude many people with young families and careers.
I have to say that is not my recollection of the councillors in our area in the 1960s and 70s, most of whom were in work and some were parents
Indeed I was asked to be a conservative councillor when I was 22 but my business needed me to be non political
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
That is a slight exaggeration. Although he usually brought his own special twist to any disaster or chaos he oversaw it is not as if the Conservative Party is short of incompetents.
What could Grayling do after the election? Selling Dover to Calais crossings on invisible ferries, perhaps.
Sunak should have used him to Stop The Boats!, obviously.
Speaking of perfidious Albionian appropriation of the culture heritage of others, just discovered that you Brits have sunk to copying US TV via cheap knockoff of that beloved American institution - "Jeopardy".
How the worm has turned! Indeed, the World Turned Upside Down.
Though do think that Stephen Fry makes a damn good quiz-master.
BUT does NOT absolve yez from inventing "The Apprentice" as part of sinister trans-Atlantic plot to make Donald Trump POTUS!!!
The program "The Apprentice" was invented in the US[1], @SeaShantyIrish2 Although we did invent television, no matter what Americans are taught in school.
Seattle Times ($) - FAA grounds Boeing MAX 9 jets in the U.S. pending inspections By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter
Following the serious incident Friday when a part of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 fuselage blew out at 16,000 feet on an Alaska Airlines flight out of Portland, the FAA on Saturday ordered the temporary grounding of most MAX 9 aircraft operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory.
“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”
The Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) that will be issued shortly will require operators to inspect aircraft before further flight that do not meet the inspection cycles specified in the EAD.
Some older MAX 9s may have had the door plug that fell out inspected recently. All other MAX 9s are grounded.
The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.
The FAA said its EAD will affect approximately 171 airplanes.
Boeing has delivered a total of 218 MAX 9s worldwide. Other aviation authorities around the globe are likely to follow the FAA lead.
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
That is a slight exaggeration. Although he usually brought his own special twist to any disaster or chaos he oversaw it is not as if the Conservative Party is short of incompetents.
What could Grayling do after the election? Selling Dover to Calais crossings on invisible ferries, perhaps.
The opportunities are endless. He can destroy any rail company still standing, cause chaos in the criminal justice system by either cutting Legal Aid or wreaking the probation service, there is almost no beginning to his talents.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
So long as they don’t appoint Dura himself, we should be OK.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
The skills needed to be successful in politics - or as a cabinet minister - are totally different to the skills needed to succeed in business. Look at Archie Norman as an example
He never was a Cabinet Minister but was a pretty able Shadow Cabinet Minister and probably would have been a good Cabinet Minister under Cameron had he stayed in politics. Hunt ran a business and is now Chancellor.
In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role
He lasted 18 months in the shadow cabinet. He was not a success. The issue is that business the person at the top gives instructions and that’s not the way politics works
Cri de coeur from SeaShantyIrish2 - Notice - Yours truly notes absence of my own humble nom de PB from the posted list of predictors, despite the fact I have submitted my entry.
WHY??????????
AND does this mean that this "election" has been rigged, by some conspiracy of the PB Powers That Be?
J'accuse!!!!!!!!
To underline the absurdity of this rank injustice, based on unreliable reports received via my custom-built tin-foil helmet, can reveal that 99.46% of my prognostications are destined to be fulfilled!
Response(?) by BenPointer (previous thread) - Yeah, sorry about that - I'm afraid I had to disqualify your entry on account of it being totally pants bringing the noble art of PB Prediction into disrepute.
Rejoinder - WTF?????? Who made YOU the Judge Dread of PB?!?!?
I hereby appeal to the PB Community-At-Large-or-Small in the name of Natural Justice to overturn this gross abuse of power by the power-mad BP!!!!!!!!!!
Your participation was raised in a case at Wimbledon Magistrates Court, brought by two residents offering evidence that your ancestors participated in some kind of insurrection. Some time in the later 18th century, I believe it was; I forget the precise dates. So, sadly, you’re disqualified.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
The skills needed to be successful in politics - or as a cabinet minister - are totally different to the skills needed to succeed in business. Look at Archie Norman as an example
He never was a Cabinet Minister but was a pretty able Shadow Cabinet Minister and probably would have been a good Cabinet Minister under Cameron had he stayed in politics. Hunt ran a business and is now Chancellor.
In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role
He lasted 18 months in the shadow cabinet. He was not a success. The issue is that business the person at the top gives instructions and that’s not the way politics works
In what way was he not a success? The PM certainly gives the instructions, as does the Cabinet Minister to his department
Just perusing the identity parade at the top of the thread, and it's pretty hard to conclude that, with a few exceptions, their departure will be any loss to the common good.
The exception that stands out is, of course, Chris Grayling, who will be a huge loss. His achievements are too short to list, and I reckon his departure will be deeply damaging to voters' views of the Tory Party.
That is a slight exaggeration. Although he usually brought his own special twist to any disaster or chaos he oversaw it is not as if the Conservative Party is short of incompetents.
What could Grayling do after the election? Selling Dover to Calais crossings on invisible ferries, perhaps.
The opportunities are endless. He can destroy any rail company still standing, cause chaos in the criminal justice system by either cutting Legal Aid or wreaking the probation service, there is almost no beginning to his talents.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
Everyone knows Stanley Kubrick filmed the Moon Landing. I won't be voting Conservative, but I never do, oh and I haven't seen 50 for over a decade.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The problem with this is that many councils end up as an antiquated social club full of retired people, lots of long meetings and daytime commitments that exclude many people with young families and careers.
I have to say that is not my recollection of the councillors in our area in the 1960s and 70s, most of whom were in work and some were parents
Indeed I was asked to be a conservative councillor when I was 22 but my business needed me to be non political
The average age of a councillor in England is now 60, just 16% of local councillors are under 45
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
Looking at the current bunch of swivel eyed loons, I would suggest that we could do a lot better by picking out some of the 99%. Some people who have experience of life outside highly paid professions, and know what it means to dread the household bills.
Apple TV’s new Godzilla series: Monarch, Legacy of Monsters, is a hoot
Completely ridiculous but really well done. Excellent escapism so far (I’m on ep 3)
I have watched Leave The World Behind and thought it absolute rubbish, poorly written, badly acted, superfluous special effects. Probably better as a stage play.
Has anyone else watched any 1670? Was it made as a drama documentary?
Apart from Slow Horses, what else is actually good at the moment?
Try “we hunt together”. I think first series is still on iPlayer but both are on Now tv. It’s a dark but weirdly beautiful Folie a Deux but the pairing of the crims and the pairing of the detectives are fun. One where you are rooting for the criminals in a way but also like the flawed detectives. The main criminal protagonist is the twin in looks and character (well not murdery) of an ex I still like so all good.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
So long as they don’t appoint Dura himself, we should be OK.
Rear-Admiral Dura would be ace.
I’m sure he would. I’d just be a bit worried about what he might do with our deterrent. Part it out ?
Why is Biden running and why is no-one telling him not to?
Not great from the Tories if they are standing down rather than lose their seats. No fan of the party but they don't even seem to be trying.
As other Democrats poll worse and he is the only Democrat who has beaten Trump, if he is GOP nominee again and the SC upholds him getting on the ballot
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
Go for it. I am sure we can rustle up some people on here to give you a reference.
Daughter's boyfriend is ex-Navy. So really collectively we should be a shoo-in.
"Dear Navy,
I would like to be your Head of Nuclear.
I am not mad or evil. Also, I have not fucked things up in my career. And know how to wear silly uniforms: horsehair wigs in court make your uniforms look positively downmarket. I won't need to move either. Plus I can actually ask questions and sniff out bullshit.
PS I don't drink rum. We'll draw a veil over the sodomy. But am Ace at the lashing, verbal or otherwise.
Shall I pop in this Friday pm to sort out the details?
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
Looking at the current bunch of swivel eyed loons, I would suggest that we could do a lot better by picking out some of the 99%. Some people who have experience of life outside highly paid professions, and know what it means to dread the household bills.
One wonders just how great a President that Franklin Roosevelt would have been, if he had just remained a pretty boy with a famous name . . . and had NOT faced the life-altering, extreme challenge of polio and severe disability?
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
As opposed to you who want to build all over the greenbelt I suppose, like Starmer? Plus the Tories still won a landslide victory in 2019 even losing most renting under 39s, they don't decide elections, 40-60 year olds do.
In any case locally Independents, Greens and LDs are more anti building new homes than Tory councils are
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The House chock-a-block full of Jacob Rees Moggs. At least Johnson couldn't have afforded to live on a tutelage wage.
We actually had a group of very capable lib dem councillors, one of whom was a friend, and they were as far away from the idiotic JRM then you could get
I'm not quite sure why people heap so much hate on JRM, he presents himself with courtesy and politeness pretty much most of the time. His 'gaffs' where more about his politically enemies deliberately interpreting his words in bad faith. He does seem from a different age, but so what.
Why is Biden running and why is no-one telling him not to?
Not great from the Tories if they are standing down rather than lose their seats. No fan of the party but they don't even seem to be trying.
As other Democrats poll worse and he is the only Democrat who has beaten Trump, if he is GOP nominee again and the SC upholds him getting on the ballot
I'm sure there are other Democrats who poll worse but is it really impossible to believe they can't find someone who would poll better?
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
Ok the flip side, if you made the MP salary £250k you'd encourage people to do it just for the money if they come from a more modest background. Might get more cases like Sheffield Hallam after Clegg.
But you're right, there's plenty of well paid people who are not wealthy as such (e.g. no significant family wealth, big mortgage) that are never going to accept a significant pay cut to be an MP. I'm sure plenty would be good MPs, but then I'm sure there's plenty of other people with the potential who aren't in lucrative careers (or have family wealth such that they can afford to slum it, relatively speaking). It's just a matter of finding them that seems to be a struggle right now.
I’d actually rather have people willing to take on the role for reasons other than money.
Even if, at a stretch, paying a lot more encouraged new people to apply from outside the well established political routes into parliament, what makes anyone think they’d fare well when they run into the twisted world of Tory Association and Labour CLP selection committees?
Almost certainly, raise the pay and we would get the same monkeys, simply earning more.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
Everyone knows Stanley Kubrick filmed the Moon Landing. I won't be voting Conservative, but I never do, oh and I haven't seen 50 for over a decade.
Talking of filming moon landings, I only yesterday discovered For All Mankind on AppleTV. Based on episode 1 it’s incredible.
In fact based on the first scene. One the best first scenes of a first series ever.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
The skills needed to be successful in politics - or as a cabinet minister - are totally different to the skills needed to succeed in business. Look at Archie Norman as an example
He never was a Cabinet Minister but was a pretty able Shadow Cabinet Minister and probably would have been a good Cabinet Minister under Cameron had he stayed in politics. Hunt ran a business and is now Chancellor.
In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role
He lasted 18 months in the shadow cabinet. He was not a success. The issue is that business the person at the top gives instructions and that’s not the way politics works
In what way was he not a success? The PM certainly gives the instructions, as does the Cabinet Minister to his department
By his own account. But also the fact that he left politics after 5 years and the highest position he achieved was shadow to a mid ranking cabinet minister. He achieved nothing of note.
You miss the point on giving instructions. Politics is a consensus business. Even the PM can’t achieve anything lasting without the support of their senior colleagues. Whereas as CEO you only need the support of the board - everyone else works for you.
Below from the guardian (so factor that in) was the first link on “Archie Norman political success” on Google
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
Interesting stats on Uni attendance on the previous thread. I think we have a real problem with some people, often white working class, thinking university isn't for people like them. Not going to university is fine, not everyone will go and it's important to have good jobs and career paths for folk who don't, but I think that this attitude means some people are missing out on something that will help them in life and that also means the country is losing out on their skills in graduate jobs. Most minorities are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and often have a more positive view on education as offering a route to get on in life. I suspect they also probably feel like a degree helps to offset remaining labour market discrimination against them, and that they have fewer opportunities through informal/family channels. My daughter attends a state sixth form college in London that is quite challenging to get into, and it is striking how few white kids there are. She said in one class they were trying to figure out if there were any white British kids in the class, there was one.
At Durham University - at the Fresher's fair this year both the Northern and Working Class Societies were placed with the international societies.
Worth saying that while Durham University does a lot of local outreach work to get people into University none of the local students twin A knows like it there.
Should add I know this as twin A is a member of a number of clubs that are national organisations who just placed the person working in Durham doing a Degree Apprenticeship as a Durham student and the 3 clubs she's a member of like people who turn up to help and have a car...
There is a genuine problem with the fact that parts of the social life and culture at some universities are so alien to a lot of people, but what do you expect with a country that is so polarised along class lines, seperate schools for the rich etc? I remember being pretty alienated when I went to Cambridge, coming from a Scottish comprehensive school. Seeing all these kids wearing black tie everywhere I was like wtf. And I am solidly middle class with two parents who went to uni. I knew working class friends who were pretty bewildered and disgusted by it all. I didn't know anyone who was thrown by the academic side of things, as you can imagine any working class kid at Cambridge is no stranger to hard work and motivating themselves, it was the other students and elements of the social side of things that created barriers, nothing to do with academic life.
As a fellow middle class comprehensive school educated Cambridge student, that stuff really didn't make much impression on me (mid 1990s). It was totally and easily possible to just turn up to lectures, do the work, eat in hall, make a friend group without particularly coming into contact with rich idiots or having fancy clothing. I spent my student life in jeans and t-shirt. I'm sure that side of things was there, but the university is a big place.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
Go for it. I am sure we can rustle up some people on here to give you a reference.
Daughter's boyfriend is ex-Navy. So really collectively we should be a shoo-in.
"Dear Navy,
I would like to be your Head of Nuclear.
I am not mad or evil. Also, I have not fucked things up in my career. And know how to wear silly uniforms: horsehair wigs in court make your uniforms look positively downmarket. I won't need to move either. Plus I can actually ask questions and sniff out bullshit.
PS I don't drink rum. We'll draw a veil over the sodomy. But am Ace at the lashing, verbal or otherwise.
Shall I pop in this Friday pm to sort out the details?
Love and kisses etc.,."
There is a chap who is ex Navy and currently unemployed who could probably do with hiding underwater for a long time. Andrew Windsor I think his name is.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
Everyone knows Stanley Kubrick filmed the Moon Landing. I won't be voting Conservative, but I never do, oh and I haven't seen 50 for over a decade.
Talking of filming moon landings, I only yesterday discovered For All Mankind on AppleTV. Based on episode 1 it’s incredible.
In fact based on the first scene. One the best first scenes of a first series ever.
It is however incredibly 'worthy', you'll see as it moves on.
Why is Biden running and why is no-one telling him not to?
Not great from the Tories if they are standing down rather than lose their seats. No fan of the party but they don't even seem to be trying.
Biden, like Reagan before, is willing to be managed and to delegate to his more capable team. That doesn’t work for Trump, who both expects to do much of it himself, and has a team of idiots.
Off topic, US hotel room prices seem to have suffered a lot of inflation since I was last there.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
The skills needed to be successful in politics - or as a cabinet minister - are totally different to the skills needed to succeed in business. Look at Archie Norman as an example
He never was a Cabinet Minister but was a pretty able Shadow Cabinet Minister and probably would have been a good Cabinet Minister under Cameron had he stayed in politics. Hunt ran a business and is now Chancellor.
In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role
He lasted 18 months in the shadow cabinet. He was not a success. The issue is that business the person at the top gives instructions and that’s not the way politics works
In what way was he not a success? The PM certainly gives the instructions, as does the Cabinet Minister to his department
By his own account. But also the fact that he left politics after 5 years and the highest position he achieved was shadow to a mid ranking cabinet minister. He achieved nothing of note.
You miss the point on giving instructions. Politics is a consensus business. Even the PM can’t achieve anything lasting without the support of their senior colleagues. Whereas as CEO you only need the support of the board - everyone else works for you.
Below from the guardian (so factor that in) was the first link on “Archie Norman political success” on Google
Interesting stats on Uni attendance on the previous thread. I think we have a real problem with some people, often white working class, thinking university isn't for people like them. Not going to university is fine, not everyone will go and it's important to have good jobs and career paths for folk who don't, but I think that this attitude means some people are missing out on something that will help them in life and that also means the country is losing out on their skills in graduate jobs. Most minorities are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and often have a more positive view on education as offering a route to get on in life. I suspect they also probably feel like a degree helps to offset remaining labour market discrimination against them, and that they have fewer opportunities through informal/family channels. My daughter attends a state sixth form college in London that is quite challenging to get into, and it is striking how few white kids there are. She said in one class they were trying to figure out if there were any white British kids in the class, there was one.
At Durham University - at the Fresher's fair this year both the Northern and Working Class Societies were placed with the international societies.
Worth saying that while Durham University does a lot of local outreach work to get people into University none of the local students twin A knows like it there.
Should add I know this as twin A is a member of a number of clubs that are national organisations who just placed the person working in Durham doing a Degree Apprenticeship as a Durham student and the 3 clubs she's a member of like people who turn up to help and have a car...
There is a genuine problem with the fact that parts of the social life and culture at some universities are so alien to a lot of people, but what do you expect with a country that is so polarised along class lines, seperate schools for the rich etc? I remember being pretty alienated when I went to Cambridge, coming from a Scottish comprehensive school. Seeing all these kids wearing black tie everywhere I was like wtf. And I am solidly middle class with two parents who went to uni. I knew working class friends who were pretty bewildered and disgusted by it all. I didn't know anyone who was thrown by the academic side of things, as you can imagine any working class kid at Cambridge is no stranger to hard work and motivating themselves, it was the other students and elements of the social side of things that created barriers, nothing to do with academic life.
As a fellow middle class comprehensive school educated Cambridge student, that stuff really didn't make much impression on me (mid 1990s). It was totally and easily possible to just turn up to lectures, do the work, eat in hall, make a friend group without particularly coming into contact with rich idiots or having fancy clothing. I spent my student life in jeans and t-shirt. I'm sure that side of things was there, but the university is a big place.
The problem with Durham is that it's so expensive and has such a reputation that no matter how had it's tried to shed it's rich Oxbridge rejects image it's never been able to do so.
Now as I said twin A is currently house hunting which means it's possible to emphasis the impact students have on the local housing - in the streets where Student housing is allowed (it's blocked in some areas now due to legal cases in the past) the difference in price is about £100,000 for each additional room above 2 suitable to be a bedroom...
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
Everyone knows Stanley Kubrick filmed the Moon Landing. I won't be voting Conservative, but I never do, oh and I haven't seen 50 for over a decade.
Talking of filming moon landings, I only yesterday discovered For All Mankind on AppleTV. Based on episode 1 it’s incredible.
In fact based on the first scene. One the best first scenes of a first series ever.
It is however incredibly 'worthy', you'll see as it moves on.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The House chock-a-block full of Jacob Rees Moggs. At least Johnson couldn't have afforded to live on a tutelage wage.
We actually had a group of very capable lib dem councillors, one of whom was a friend, and they were as far away from the idiotic JRM then you could get
I'm not quite sure why people heap so much hate on JRM, he presents himself with courtesy and politeness pretty much most of the time. His 'gaffs' where more about his politically enemies deliberately interpreting his words in bad faith. He does seem from a different age, but so what.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The problem with this is that many councils end up as an antiquated social club full of retired people, lots of long meetings and daytime commitments that exclude many people with young families and careers.
I have to say that is not my recollection of the councillors in our area in the 1960s and 70s, most of whom were in work and some were parents
Indeed I was asked to be a conservative councillor when I was 22 but my business needed me to be non political
I was interested in it about a decade ago and got involved with the local labour party. The Councillors were spending their every day of their lives on some party/community business. It was essentially a full time job for which they were paid almost nothing, a large chunk of their allowance went to the party and whatever was left would not cover their expenses. Some youngsters would get in to it normally through by-elections and then they would quit soon after. I know there are exceptions to this rule but it struck me that the role is most suited to the retired or semi retired which is reflected in the demographics of councillors.
Interesting stats on Uni attendance on the previous thread. I think we have a real problem with some people, often white working class, thinking university isn't for people like them. Not going to university is fine, not everyone will go and it's important to have good jobs and career paths for folk who don't, but I think that this attitude means some people are missing out on something that will help them in life and that also means the country is losing out on their skills in graduate jobs. Most minorities are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and often have a more positive view on education as offering a route to get on in life. I suspect they also probably feel like a degree helps to offset remaining labour market discrimination against them, and that they have fewer opportunities through informal/family channels. My daughter attends a state sixth form college in London that is quite challenging to get into, and it is striking how few white kids there are. She said in one class they were trying to figure out if there were any white British kids in the class, there was one.
At Durham University - at the Fresher's fair this year both the Northern and Working Class Societies were placed with the international societies.
Worth saying that while Durham University does a lot of local outreach work to get people into University none of the local students twin A knows like it there.
Should add I know this as twin A is a member of a number of clubs that are national organisations who just placed the person working in Durham doing a Degree Apprenticeship as a Durham student and the 3 clubs she's a member of like people who turn up to help and have a car...
There is a genuine problem with the fact that parts of the social life and culture at some universities are so alien to a lot of people, but what do you expect with a country that is so polarised along class lines, seperate schools for the rich etc? I remember being pretty alienated when I went to Cambridge, coming from a Scottish comprehensive school. Seeing all these kids wearing black tie everywhere I was like wtf. And I am solidly middle class with two parents who went to uni. I knew working class friends who were pretty bewildered and disgusted by it all. I didn't know anyone who was thrown by the academic side of things, as you can imagine any working class kid at Cambridge is no stranger to hard work and motivating themselves, it was the other students and elements of the social side of things that created barriers, nothing to do with academic life.
As a fellow middle class comprehensive school educated Cambridge student, that stuff really didn't make much impression on me (mid 1990s). It was totally and easily possible to just turn up to lectures, do the work, eat in hall, make a friend group without particularly coming into contact with rich idiots or having fancy clothing. I spent my student life in jeans and t-shirt. I'm sure that side of things was there, but the university is a big place.
The problem with Durham is that it's so expensive and has such a reputation that no matter how had it's tried to shed it's rich Oxbridge rejects image it's never been able to do so.
Now as I said twin A is currently house hunting which means it's possible to emphasis the impact students have on the local housing - in the streets where Student housing is allowed (it's blocked in some areas now due to legal cases in the past) the difference in price is about £100,000 for each additional room above 2 suitable to be a bedroom...
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
Well the Greens only get the votes primarily of those too ignorant to think through that their views don't match their interests. Which is why they don't win any seats, because theirs is not a winning philosophy.
Your Councillor sounds like a grade A hypocrite and would not be one I've voted for. My local Councillor is a rare breed, a Lib Dem who has put no NIMBY bits on any of her marketing materials, which is why I voted for her in the last local election. In fact her campaign (to replace a Conservative she defeated) was instead about calling for investment in local schools and roads, something I completely support, rather than opposing development.
Housing will be affordable when we have more of it. All construction makes housing more affordable.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The House chock-a-block full of Jacob Rees Moggs. At least Johnson couldn't have afforded to live on a tutelage wage.
We actually had a group of very capable lib dem councillors, one of whom was a friend, and they were as far away from the idiotic JRM then you could get
I'm not quite sure why people heap so much hate on JRM, he presents himself with courtesy and politeness pretty much most of the time. His 'gaffs' where more about his politically enemies deliberately interpreting his words in bad faith. He does seem from a different age, but so what.
Yeah, the "courtesy and politeness" of an extremely snooty, supercilious head waiter who lives just to treat the lower orders (who pay his freight) like dirt?
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
Go for it. I am sure we can rustle up some people on here to give you a reference.
Daughter's boyfriend is ex-Navy. So really collectively we should be a shoo-in.
"Dear Navy,
I would like to be your Head of Nuclear.
I am not mad or evil. Also, I have not fucked things up in my career. And know how to wear silly uniforms: horsehair wigs in court make your uniforms look positively downmarket. I won't need to move either. Plus I can actually ask questions and sniff out bullshit.
PS I don't drink rum. We'll draw a veil over the sodomy. But am Ace at the lashing, verbal or otherwise.
Shall I pop in this Friday pm to sort out the details?
Love and kisses etc.,."
There is a chap who is ex Navy and currently unemployed who could probably do with hiding underwater for a long time. Andrew Windsor I think his name is.
He rather fails the "not fucking things up" test, though. I mean, we need to have some standards.
I would say there is going to be a By-election in Blackpool North as well as Blackpool South but given the speed the IPSA works at I suspect their investigation won't be finished until after the next election
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Along with Residents' Association and Independent councillors
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The House chock-a-block full of Jacob Rees Moggs. At least Johnson couldn't have afforded to live on a tutelage wage.
We actually had a group of very capable lib dem councillors, one of whom was a friend, and they were as far away from the idiotic JRM then you could get
I'm not quite sure why people heap so much hate on JRM, he presents himself with courtesy and politeness pretty much most of the time. His 'gaffs' where more about his politically enemies deliberately interpreting his words in bad faith. He does seem from a different age, but so what.
Hi Jacob, welcome to PB!
Sad to say, in these sadly turbulent times, am leery of greeting ANY new PB posters UNTIL it's reasonably clear they are NOT another Putin Bot.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
The issue is that you need to bring people along with you on the journey of getting things done. If you go in screaming JFDI at everyone then the opposite will happen.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
You need to meet a few more Tory councillors, IMHO.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
There have been spells when local Government has been keen to recruit to senior positions from the private sector. The problem is senior private sector people don't understand the officer/member relationship and especially the politics of that relationship. Some think they are the CEO and the Councillors are the Board of Directors which is emphatcially not how it is.
Others think they can simply command and cajole but when you are dealing with elected Members you have to argue and persuade and it's my experience private sector people aren't very good at that - they tend to think shouting and saying JFDI gets things done - it doesn't.
I confess having seen the standard of private sector people I'm astonished we have a functioning economy at all - we are badly let down by an inefficient and incompetent private sector.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
The issue is that you need to bring people along with you on the journey of getting things done. If you just go in screaming JFDI at everyone then the opposite will happen.
You don't get anything done by screaming at people in the private sector either, but you can get JFDI attitudes and get them to thrive.
Good management is important, but if people are standing in the way of getting things done, then those people potentially need to be removed from the system.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
Why stop there? You're forgetting professional footballers, rock stars, successful gangsters and contract killers, reality TV stars, top-flight YouTube influencers and those with serious inherited wealth.
Do you not see what a nonsense it is to try to define the "top 1%" purely in terms of money?
Not purely, there are plenty of academics or farmers or small businessmen who are not in the top 1% who would make good MPs.
However on balance the top 1% talent wise are mostly found in the top 1% income wise and we want more of them to consider entering politics and becoming Cabinet Ministers
The skills needed to be successful in politics - or as a cabinet minister - are totally different to the skills needed to succeed in business. Look at Archie Norman as an example
He never was a Cabinet Minister but was a pretty able Shadow Cabinet Minister and probably would have been a good Cabinet Minister under Cameron had he stayed in politics. Hunt ran a business and is now Chancellor.
In the US of course the Cabinet is separate from the legislature, they appoint from the best in their field for each role
He lasted 18 months in the shadow cabinet. He was not a success. The issue is that business the person at the top gives instructions and that’s not the way politics works
In what way was he not a success? The PM certainly gives the instructions, as does the Cabinet Minister to his department
By his own account. But also the fact that he left politics after 5 years and the highest position he achieved was shadow to a mid ranking cabinet minister. He achieved nothing of note.
You miss the point on giving instructions. Politics is a consensus business. Even the PM can’t achieve anything lasting without the support of their senior colleagues. Whereas as CEO you only need the support of the board - everyone else works for you.
Below from the guardian (so factor that in) was the first link on “Archie Norman political success” on Google
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcements - I pile cite a few examples there too.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Nice effort at giving a grown up perspective on other people’s over-simplistic assumptions based on ignorance about entire sectors. There’s far too much lazy generalising out there which has more to do with ideology than reality.
Until “with the connivance of accountants and auditors” where you…make over-simplistic assumptions based on ignorance about entire sectors.
If a Tory MP can earn more outside the Commons in the law or a company board or as a lobbyist maybe they will jump before pushed if in a marginal seat or if in a safe seat and they were a Minister or had Cabinet potential and the prospect of Opposition doesn't appeal, if not they probably won't.
The type of MP who probably won't is the likes of this poor redwall Conservative MP mentioned in Dorries' book first elected in 2019.
Its certainly true that MPs are grossly overpaid, and many of them will come back down to Earth with a bump post-defeat.
However I don't have a violin tiny enough for any sympathy for them, they've reaped the benefits of being overpaid for years and if they lose its because they collectively have not done a good job.
MPs should be paid much closer to the median salary, not something like the 98th percentile which it is currently.
MPs are grossly overpaid if you want only slightly above average intellect and career wise candidates as you clearly do.
If you want the top 1% intellect and career wise to consider a political career however MPs are significantly underpaid. They aren't going to take a pay cut and considerable media and social media intrusion just for the outside chance of a Cabinet post and more likely spending much of the time on the backbenches.
So we will get more of the MPs we deserve, increasingly party hacks and ex councillors or parliamentary researchers
Does it ever occur to people who advance this argument that people who make a god out of money are perhaps not the kind of people we should be filling the legislature with?
It doesn't have to be billionaires or multi millionaires, even criminal QCs or partners in commercial law firms, consultants, partners in GP practices, national newspaper columnists and news readers and headmasters of secondary schools earn more than MPs do
And of course so they should too.
Partners, headmasters etc are at the top of their career - the PM as head politician should be paid comparable to them.
Entry level backbenchers as junior politicians should be paid comparable to newly qualified teachers, junior doctors etc.
The fact Councillors are grossly overpaid doesn't mean that we should pay MPs more either, it means we should pay Councillors less too.
The average councillor earns less than minimum wage in allowances, it is only at Cabinet level in County or Borough councils you earn significantly more
Good evening
I remember the time when they were not paid but gave their services to the community entirely voluntarily and they were far better than most councillors elected today
The problem with this is that many councils end up as an antiquated social club full of retired people, lots of long meetings and daytime commitments that exclude many people with young families and careers.
I have to say that is not my recollection of the councillors in our area in the 1960s and 70s, most of whom were in work and some were parents
Indeed I was asked to be a conservative councillor when I was 22 but my business needed me to be non political
I was interested in it about a decade ago and got involved with the local labour party. The Councillors were spending their every day of their lives on some party/community business. It was essentially a full time job for which they were paid almost nothing, a large chunk of their allowance went to the party and whatever was left would not cover their expenses. Some youngsters would get in to it normally through by-elections and then they would quit soon after. I know there are exceptions to this rule but it struck me that the role is most suited to the retired or semi retired which is reflected in the demographics of councillors.
When I am world king, I will ban the forced subvention of councillor allowances by political parties. They are intended to cover costs and time for councillors not to be a sneaky form of state funding for political parties
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
But the Post Office during the key period (and since) was run by people brought in for their private sector expertise, who didn’t really understand what they were managing.
What we are looking at is a tragic confluence of private sector people focused on their key objective whilst not interested, or understanding, the environment they are in, supported by a load of career long public sector people trained to follow instructions and otherwise keep their heads down.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
To the first one - yes.
To the second - no, with respect that’s very naive. For a start that only really applies to listed companies anyway, and even then the level of transparency is a million miles different.
A large part of the issue with the post office scandal, of course, was trying to run it in a private sector fashion when the service is crying out to be run as a public service.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
So wrong it’s not worth arguing. Suggests you haven’t worked in either sector at any level of seniority that allows you to see the governance or transparency.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
But the Post Office during the key period (and since) was run by people brought in for their private sector expertise, who didn’t really understand what they were managing.
What we are looking at is a tragic confluence of private sector people focused on their key objective whilst not interested, or understanding, the environment they are in, supported by a load of career long public sector people trained to follow instructions and otherwise keep their heads down.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Nice effort at giving a grown up perspective on other people’s over-simplistic assumptions based on ignorance about entire sectors. There’s far too much lazy generalising out there which has more to do with ideology than reality.
Until “with the connivance of accountants and auditors” where you…make over-simplistic assumptions based on ignorance about entire sectors.
Sigh…
Or deep experience of them….
Edit - there are some fundamental issues about long term planning and implementation in the U.K., with symptoms on show in the public and private sectors in different ways. The short version is this - they are both too short termist. In Gvt this is driven by politics and in business by the markets and where we have got to with our project finance models.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
Any and all developments of houses ease the housing shortage and should be supported. That they make a profit for housebuilders and developers is neither here nor there, that's the purpose of them, they're providing a valuable service (increasing housing supply) so should be entitled to a profit just the same as every other business.
The impact of surrounding communities and infrastructure should never stand in the way of housing developments, nor be the responsibility of developers. It should be the responsibility of those in charge of communities and infrastructure to respond to increased development by investing in more infrastructure if that is what is required.
Standing in the way of required development of housing because of a shortage of infrastructure solves neither the infrastructure shortage, nor the housing shortage.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
One of the biggest mistakes of the Coalition was getting rid of the Audit Commission but there are mechanisms such as the Local Government Ombudsman. Who, for instance, would you hold accountable for the disasters at Thurrock and Woking - the elected Members, Senior Officers, both, neither? I do agree the taxpayer does in the end finish up footing the bill but when some private sector companies fail (as we've seen), the Government ends up holding the baby.
Allister Heath once argued for all organisations (both public and private) to write in effect a Will describing what should happen if the business were to become bankrupt or insolvent outlining what should happen to creditors, employees, shareholders etc.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
We need approximately 3 million homes built. But no builder is going to build a towerblock of flats if the site isn't appropriate - "executive" homes are way more saleable...
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
So wrong it’s not worth arguing. Suggests you haven’t worked in either sector at any level of seniority that allows you to see the governance or transparency.
I have indeed. And I've dealt with many poorly ran private sector businesses - who have gone out of business with their shareholders being wiped out or taking a massive haircut as a result.
And I've dealt with poorly ran public sector, where people get the runaround and any mess is left to the taxpayer to take responsibility for, no shareholder to wipeout and no responsibility taken by those who made the mess.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
One of the biggest mistakes of the Coalition was getting rid of the Audit Commission but there are mechanisms such as the Local Government Ombudsman. Who, for instance, would you hold accountable for the disasters at Thurrock and Woking - the elected Members, Senior Officers, both, neither? I do agree the taxpayer does in the end finish up footing the bill but when some private sector companies fail (as we've seen), the Government ends up holding the baby.
Allister Heath once argued for all organisations (both public and private) to write in effect a Will describing what should happen if the business were to become bankrupt or insolvent outlining what should happen to creditors, employees, shareholders etc.
The taxpayer should never foot the bill for private sector companies failing and Gordon Brown agreeing to do so was a tremendous mistake he made.
No private business should ever be regarded as too big to fail.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
We need approximately 3 million homes built. But no builder is going to build a towerblock of flats if the site isn't appropriate - "executive" homes are way more saleable...
Fantastic, so build 3 million (I'd call for 10 million) executive homes then if that's what people want to buy.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
I too think that you would.
My claim to fame, when I go to the grave, is to have achieved the biggest change to the way postmen and women are paid, since the 19th century. But it took six years of continual focus, cost the careers of two union general secretaries (one of whom went off to a second career and ended up as Home Secretary), and earned me neither fame, fortune or honour.
The skills and competencies needed to work in the public and private sector are more different than many people realise. The idiots are those who think that those that take them far in one sector can simply be dropped into a role in the other, and succeed.
It would be better if people in different roles understood the varying environments in which they work, and respect that different jobs have different challenges and require different skill sets.
En route to privatisation, the Royal Mail went out of its way to bring in a shedload of senior people from private industry (a prerequisite for which was having to pay hugely more by way of salary and bonus); I wish I was able to tell you some of the stories of how things sometimes turned out….
Vennells’ appearance before the statutory inquiry will be most instructive….perhaps.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
Any and all developments of houses ease the housing shortage and should be supported. That they make a profit for housebuilders and developers is neither here nor there, that's the purpose of them, they're providing a valuable service (increasing housing supply) so should be entitled to a profit just the same as every other business.
The impact of surrounding communities and infrastructure should never stand in the way of housing developments, nor be the responsibility of developers. It should be the responsibility of those in charge of communities and infrastructure to respond to increased development by investing in more infrastructure if that is what is required.
Standing in the way of required development of housing because of a shortage of infrastructure solves neither the infrastructure shortage, nor the housing shortage.
Fortunately, our planning and development process isn't as chaotic as you would like.
Section 106 either provides for the developers to pay for infrastructure projects to improve the wider community or, as a condition of approval, the developer might offer to provide a new school or a health centre or a community facility which is fine to a point.
If you have a village with 500 houses and a development proposal for 500 new houses, it's going to impact the village (I don't disagree the impacts are broadly positive) and the impacts have to be taken into account. That doesn't stop the 500 being built but recognises the impact they will have on the surrounding community.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
I'm not trying to upset the lib dems but the reality is that many insurgent parties rise to power in local government on planning issues, it is just my experience of how things are - ie stopping some fields from being built on. The lib dems and greens (and independent parties) are more often than not the insurgents. Most of the time they cannot stop anything as it gets allowed at appeal and often the end game of this is a legal bill of hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
Any and all developments of houses ease the housing shortage and should be supported. That they make a profit for housebuilders and developers is neither here nor there, that's the purpose of them, they're providing a valuable service (increasing housing supply) so should be entitled to a profit just the same as every other business.
The impact of surrounding communities and infrastructure should never stand in the way of housing developments, nor be the responsibility of developers. It should be the responsibility of those in charge of communities and infrastructure to respond to increased development by investing in more infrastructure if that is what is required.
Standing in the way of required development of housing because of a shortage of infrastructure solves neither the infrastructure shortage, nor the housing shortage.
Fortunately, our planning and development process isn't as chaotic as you would like.
Section 106 either provides for the developers to pay for infrastructure projects to improve the wider community or, as a condition of approval, the developer might offer to provide a new school or a health centre or a community facility which is fine to a point.
If you have a village with 500 houses and a development proposal for 500 new houses, it's going to impact the village (I don't disagree the impacts are broadly positive) and the impacts have to be taken into account. That doesn't stop the 500 being built but recognises the impact they will have on the surrounding community.
Section 106 along with our planning system should be abolished.
If you have a population of 1200 people living in 500 homes and the population develops to 2400 people then its going to impact the village, whether those 2400 are living now in 1000 homes or the same 500.
Population growth is happening whether you like it or not, standing in the way of development to stick your head in the sand and pretend that alleviates consequences or impact is a dismal failure that's just resulted in a chronic housing shortage, failure to invest in infrastructure, collapsing infrastructure and dismal services.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
But the Post Office during the key period (and since) was run by people brought in for their private sector expertise, who didn’t really understand what they were managing.
What we are looking at is a tragic confluence of private sector people focused on their key objective whilst not interested, or understanding, the environment they are in, supported by a load of career long public sector people trained to follow instructions and otherwise keep their heads down.
That is part of the explanation and an important factor. But I was responding to the claim that because it was in the public sector it had to declare its mistakes in full.
That has certainly not happened in the PO's case. If anything, partly to avoid embarrassing Ministers or at least Ministerial decisions and partly to permit the privatisation of Royal Mail, the unfolding problems were kept as quiet as possible for as long as possible, even to the extent of misleading courts and Parliament.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Mistakes in the private sector have to be declared in full, and if brushed under the carpet then the business can fail as a result with the shareholders taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
One of the biggest mistakes of the Coalition was getting rid of the Audit Commission but there are mechanisms such as the Local Government Ombudsman. Who, for instance, would you hold accountable for the disasters at Thurrock and Woking - the elected Members, Senior Officers, both, neither? I do agree the taxpayer does in the end finish up footing the bill but when some private sector companies fail (as we've seen), the Government ends up holding the baby.
Allister Heath once argued for all organisations (both public and private) to write in effect a Will describing what should happen if the business were to become bankrupt or insolvent outlining what should happen to creditors, employees, shareholders etc.
"Being of unsound mind and body, I/we hereby leave all our outstanding debts and obligations to my/our faithful, long-suffering employees and creditors; on the other hand, I/we cut our directors, senior managers and (major) totally and completely from this last will and testament - they get NOTHING of non-value."
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
Yes, a fair few people with that attitude got dropped into District Head Postmaster roles, got on with their JFDI until their local union called the staff out on strike, and then railed against everyone from HQ to their own management team who were telling them that they needed to resolve the situation by exploring some avenue to compromise. Most of them imagined themselves as Maggie reincarnated running the miners’ strike, and the effort needed to educate them as to why politicians and the police force and everyone else wasn’t going to back their local intransigence, and why their local town wasn’t going to go without any mail for a month or more while they held out for the union’s surrender, was often….considerable.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
Yes, a fair few people with that attitude got dropped into District Head Postmaster roles, got on with their JFDI until their local union called the staff out on strike, and then railed against everyone from HQ to their own staff who were telling them that they needed to resolve the situation by exploring some avenue to compromise. Most of them imagined themselves as Maggie reincarnated running the miners’ strike, and the effort needed to educate them as to why politicians and the police force and everyone else wasn’t going to back their local intransigence, was often quite considerable.
Which is part of the reason why too much of the public sector is not fit for purpose.
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
I too think that you would.
My claim to fame, when I go to the grave, is to have achieved the biggest change to the way postmen and women are paid, since the 19th century. But it took six years of continual focus, cost the careers of two union general secretaries (one of whom went off to a second career and ended up as Home Secretary), and earned me neither fame, fortune or honour.
The skills and competencies needed to work in the public and private sector are more different than many people realise. The idiots are those who think that those that take them far in one sector can simply be dropped into a role in the other, and succeed.
It would be better if people in different roles understood the varying environments in which they work, and respect that different jobs have different challenges and require different skill sets.
En route to privatisation, the Royal Mail went out of its way to bring in a shedload of senior people from private industry (a prerequisite for which was having to pay hugely more by way of salary and bonus); I wish I was able to tell you some of the stories of how things sometimes turned out….
Vennells’ appearance before the statutory inquiry will be most instructive….perhaps.
What are odds, that Paula Vennells will be delivered to the Inquiry to give her testimony, in an iron cage?
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
On the contrary. But you need persistence, and an understanding that you’re operating in a world of multiple and conflicting stakeholders, which you don’t so often see in the private sector. During my public sector career I’ve seen a lot of people take up senior roles from the private sector, and most (but not all) of them arrive with the simplistic attitude that you just need to decide yourself what needs to be done and then JFDI. It usually doesn’t end well.
That is what you need.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
Yes, a fair few people with that attitude got dropped into District Head Postmaster roles, got on with their JFDI until their local union called the staff out on strike, and then railed against everyone from HQ to their own staff who were telling them that they needed to resolve the situation by exploring some avenue to compromise. Most of them imagined themselves as Maggie reincarnated running the miners’ strike, and the effort needed to educate them as to why politicians and the police force and everyone else wasn’t going to back their local intransigence, was often quite considerable.
Which is part of the reason why too much of the public sector is not fit for purpose.
Maybe your appreciation isn’t fit for purpose?
Wishing the world were as you would like it is easy. And is usually symptomatic of a right winger.
Dealing with the world as it actually is requires a more intelligent approach.
"The Royal Navy has been forced to use LinkedIn to advertise for a Rear-Admiral to be responsible for the nation’s nuclear deterrent amid a growing recruitment crisis.
Well now: I can drive to Barrow in 30 minutes, know quite a few people working in BaE and am not going to sexually harass anyone. So .....
What do you mean, I have no relevant knowledge or experience and get seasick. This is Britain in 2024. Since when have such things mattered at all? Also my son is a nuclear graduate so he can tell me about any techie stuff.
I'd rather not be a Rear-Admiral, though. A Dame Admiral sounds much more fun.
Also the opportunity to boss a few of the Dura Ace's of the future is too delicious to resist.
So long as they don’t appoint Dura himself, we should be OK.
Rear-Admiral Dura would be ace.
I’m sure he would. I’d just be a bit worried about what he might do with our deterrent. Part it out ?
He could replace it. Anyone threatening the UK with nuclear obliteration could be at risk of a withering Dura Ace dressing down, complete with their own soubriquet.
Whether the Tories win an election again within a decade or not depends on how Labour handle the economy. Handle it reasonably well as New Labour did and like post 1997 the Tories can expect to be in Opposition for 10 years or more.
Handle it poorly as previous Labour governments did and the swingback to the Tories would be much more rapid. Remember after landslide defeat in 1945 the Tories were back in government in 1951, after losing power in 1964 they were back in power in 1970 ie within 10 years. Thatcher of course took the party back to government in 1979, just 5 years after Heath had lost the 1974 general elections to Wilson's Labour
Obviously anything's possible and one shouldn't rule out a Tory comeback, but it may be very optimistic about the hole the Tories are in with a large swathe of the public. Even a fairly dud Labour government could plausibly lay most of its economic difficulties at the door of the previous government's failures and a wasted decade.
You can see it in polling where the Tories figures among those of working age are pitiful (and that includes those in the past who'd be moving to vote solidly Tory). It may be in a doom loop whereby its route to recovery is blocked by the fact it's increasingly reliant on the wealthy old, so can't propose growth-friendly policies that irk them. But without doing so cater to a base with diminishing returns and further cement their reputation as the party of economic decline.
What we may witness is something like 1979, a generational sea change whereby for a lot of people of a certain generation, Labour gained a reputation for economic mismanagement and supporting a broken model it arguably hasn't shaken off with those of that age. With the one era of success coming when Blair and Brown made clear the party had moved away from that.
The next successful Tory leader may well have to prove that similarly, they're not wedded to the right of the party's failed approach, and their ostensibly liberal wing's weakness in appeasing them.
Remember by the end of 1980 even Michael Foot led Thatcher in the polls as unemployment rose, indeed Thatcher would probably have lost in 1983 had she not got unemployment as well as inflation down and cut strikes by then and won in the Falklands.
If economy is poor and frequent strikes and high inflation under a Starmer government even a rightwinger as Tory leader could wing much as the supposedly 'unelectable' Thatcher won as a rightwinger against the 1979 Labour government after only 5 years of the Tories in opposition
But that's kind of the point. Thatcher won in 83 and then 87 despite some serious difficulties and rough patches, in part because there had been an underlying shift in perceptions that Labour struggled to grasp and run with because a whole tranche of people had lost faith in its ideas.
Similarly, doubt Starmer's govt will have its issues, but even after a mediocre four or five years the Tories may face an uphill battle because they're simply toxic, like really toxic, to generations whose votes will only grow in importance.
And there's probably an underestimation of quite how toxic they are. I know people who in terms of income level and general "meh" attitude to politics should be Tory voters. They regard the party with a contempt usually reserved for those residing in high-security medical facilities, having spent the past decade making decisions that have made lives more difficult or just been insulting.
It's going to take a lot for the Tories to reverse that, in a way that's rather different I think to those conducive to a changing of perceptions or a quick return. Especially given they seem completely unwilling or unable to realise the depth of their predicament with those who aren't retired or getting there.
If you're under 50, you're roughly as likely to believe the moon landings are faked as plan to vote Tory. That's not a party with a bright future, unless it can address the reasons why and change. Clue: It's part economics, part their flagship political project being catastrophically unpopular in a way few policies ever are.
For now, add in rising unemployment, strikes, rising inflation and high interest rates and sluggish growth under a Starmer government and the middle aged swing voters ie those 35-65, would certainly consider voting Tory again even if under 35s voted Labour still.
Remember in 2019 the median age more voters voted Conservative than Labour was 39 not 59 and most Conservative voters were voting to get Brexit done as most of them had voted for it!
Of course the median age where people were more likely to live in their own home than rent was also around 39 too. Which is shockingly bad and nothing for you to be pleased with.
Set aside Brexit and one thing that Thatcher, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove all had in common is they all wanted to get more on the housing ladder, they understood that it is only because of people being able to move on in life that people become more Tory as they age, its not a simple automatic fact of ageing that happens.
Unfortunately Johnson's moderate housing reforms were defeated by the likes of May, cheered on by the likes of you, and then Sunak has torn up any measures to see more housing built to alleviate the crisis that is causing those in their 20s and 30s to have to rent.
As a result you and they deserve to be nowhere near office, and do not deserve to be elected.
Conservativism should be about ensuring as many people as possible can support themselves, paying for their own home, out of their own wages.
Unfortunately its been taken over by a cargo cult who believe that other people paying for their homes, out of their wages, is a better way to live.
Until the Conservatives return back to solid Conservative principles, they deserve to be in Opposition.
I have always wondered why the most anti development, the Greens are the ones the youngster seem to think deserve their vote. Got a lib dem councillor round our way who has opposed at every juncture the building of a couple of hundred houses by an RSL (registered social landlord = council housing) but in their efforts to become the local MP has 'affordable housing' as second on his list of priorities for the constituency.
This is a timeless feature of local politics - one of the ways to get elected is to jump on to some planning controversy. Every party is guilty of this but the greens/lib dems are consistently the worst offenders.
Extraordinarily short sighted comment. Most Greens and LDs aren't anti-development - what they are opposed to is developments purely designed to maximise profit for housebuilders and property developers. Simply chucking a huge block of flats or a vast estate of houses on a site without considering the impact on the surrounding communities and infrastructure seems entirely desireable.
Any and all developments of houses ease the housing shortage and should be supported. That they make a profit for housebuilders and developers is neither here nor there, that's the purpose of them, they're providing a valuable service (increasing housing supply) so should be entitled to a profit just the same as every other business.
The impact of surrounding communities and infrastructure should never stand in the way of housing developments, nor be the responsibility of developers. It should be the responsibility of those in charge of communities and infrastructure to respond to increased development by investing in more infrastructure if that is what is required.
Standing in the way of required development of housing because of a shortage of infrastructure solves neither the infrastructure shortage, nor the housing shortage.
Fortunately, our planning and development process isn't as chaotic as you would like.
Section 106 either provides for the developers to pay for infrastructure projects to improve the wider community or, as a condition of approval, the developer might offer to provide a new school or a health centre or a community facility which is fine to a point.
If you have a village with 500 houses and a development proposal for 500 new houses, it's going to impact the village (I don't disagree the impacts are broadly positive) and the impacts have to be taken into account. That doesn't stop the 500 being built but recognises the impact they will have on the surrounding community.
Section 106 along with our planning system should be abolished.
If you have a population of 1200 people living in 500 homes and the population develops to 2400 people then its going to impact the village, whether those 2400 are living now in 1000 homes or the same 500.
Population growth is happening whether you like it or not, standing in the way of development to stick your head in the sand and pretend that alleviates consequences or impact is a dismal failure that's just resulted in a chronic housing shortage, failure to invest in infrastructure, collapsing infrastructure and dismal services.
The system isn't working.
Abolishing the requirement for developers to fund appropriate community infrastructure alongside new housing they build via s106 ie new schools, GPs etc would just see an even bigger surge in Nimbyism.
The population is rising mainly because of immigration which the government has finally taken measures to control, the UK birth rate is below replacement level
I would love to have people with the forensic skill of say Ms Cyclefree as an MP. But you'd probably need to pay her c£250k for her to touch the job with a barge pole.
If you have skills and want to use them for the benefit of society there are lots of jobs going in the public sector. Obviously you have to take a pay cut but that is reflective of the fact you are changing direction to public service and most of the time there is a large pension. However I don't think becoming an MP has much appeal because of the grief that now comes with the work.
I think I'd hate working in the public sector and find it immensely frustrating.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
You're simply wrong. In the public sector, getting things done is not frowned upon: it is celebrated and valued, and tends to lead to rapid promotion. I speak from extensive experience.
Problem-solving in order to get things done in complex public sector organisations is intellectually challenging, and hugely rewarding as it leads to improved services for the public.
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
To the first one - yes.
To the second - no, with respect that’s very naive. For a start that only really applies to listed companies anyway, and even then the level of transparency is a million miles different.
A large part of the issue with the post office scandal, of course, was trying to run it in a private sector fashion when the service is crying out to be run as a public service.
There is something in the criticism that a public service was being run by the wrong people in the wrong way. But it overlooks the fact that in important ways it was behaving like a public sector organization - its prosecution powers, for instance, gave it powers that few bodies had, its claim on unlimited funds when it came to litigation and the lack of any effective supervision or oversight.
I don't think the private sector is some sort of nirvana. It seems to me the difference is that the character and competence of those in charge is very important and has been far too undervalued. Part of what I mean by character is the willingness to ask questions and the humility to know that you do not know everything and need to learn. Far too many people at the top lack this.
One other point is the practice of having part-time Chairmen or directors with lots of different directorships. See, for instance, Tim Cook - Chairman of the Post Office during the Vennells era who thought he could do the job in 1 & 1/2 days a week. These jobs are serious ones which really require more effort and commitment. Too often they are treated as sinecures for people who collect a load of them. Then we wonder why things go wrong.
Comments
“It is not a label of choice. But a turnip has deeper roots than a lettuce.”
WTF? News to me and 341m of my fellow Americans!
For example, who in the world thinks that RICK PERRY, Trump's Secretary of Energy, was "the best" in THAT field. Or any freaking field for that matter?
And IF you think I'm merely slagging on #45, then consider the tenure of #16's first Secretary of War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Cameron
Tidbit from History - When Abraham Lincoln was awaiting inauguration and making his initial cabinet picks, he asked congressman Thaddeus Stevens for his opinion re: fellow Pennsylvanian Simon Cameron.
Well, Stevens replied, I'm pretty sure that he would NOT steal a hot stove.
Which was such a good joke (about a Bad Joke) that Abe just had to repeat it to others . . . with result that it Cameron soon heard about it . . . and was NOT amused.
Next time Stevens met with POTUS-Elect, Lincoln told him of Cameron's displeasure, and asked if Thad would mind taking back his witticism.
OK, said Stevens, upon mature reflection - I do think that he WOULD steal a hot stove.
Abe laughed even louder, but still appointed Cameron as head of the War Department - at a rather critical juncture in American history.
But NOT because he was the best and brightest.
Indeed I was asked to be a conservative councillor when I was 22 but my business needed me to be non political
Well, do note that Trump's MOM was a Brit!
By Dominic Gates Seattle Times aerospace reporter
Following the serious incident Friday when a part of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 fuselage blew out at 16,000 feet on an Alaska Airlines flight out of Portland, the FAA on Saturday ordered the temporary grounding of most MAX 9 aircraft operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory.
“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”
The Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) that will be issued shortly will require operators to inspect aircraft before further flight that do not meet the inspection cycles specified in the EAD.
Some older MAX 9s may have had the door plug that fell out inspected recently. All other MAX 9s are grounded.
The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.
The FAA said its EAD will affect approximately 171 airplanes.
Boeing has delivered a total of 218 MAX 9s worldwide. Other aviation authorities around the globe are likely to follow the FAA lead.
https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Councillors' Census 2022 - report FINAL-210622.pdf
Why is Biden running and why is no-one telling him not to?
Not great from the Tories if they are standing down rather than lose their seats. No fan of the party but they don't even seem to be trying.
I’d just be a bit worried about what he might do with our deterrent.
Part it out ?
"Dear Navy,
I would like to be your Head of Nuclear.
I am not mad or evil. Also, I have not fucked things up in my career. And know how to wear silly uniforms: horsehair wigs in court make your uniforms look positively downmarket. I won't need to move either. Plus I can actually ask questions and sniff out bullshit.
PS I don't drink rum. We'll draw a veil over the sodomy. But am Ace at the lashing, verbal or otherwise.
Shall I pop in this Friday pm to sort out the details?
Love and kisses etc.,."
In any case locally Independents, Greens and LDs are more anti building new homes than Tory councils are
He does seem from a different age, but so what.
Getting things done is frowned upon and would rapidly lead to me getting ostracised by colleagues.
Even if, at a stretch, paying a lot more encouraged new people to apply from outside the well established political routes into parliament, what makes anyone think they’d fare well when they run into the twisted world of Tory Association and Labour CLP selection committees?
Almost certainly, raise the pay and we would get the same monkeys, simply earning more.
In fact based on the first scene. One the best first scenes of a first series ever.
You miss the point on giving instructions. Politics is a consensus business. Even the PM can’t achieve anything lasting without the support of their senior colleagues. Whereas as CEO you only need the support of the board - everyone else works for you.
Below from the guardian (so factor that in) was the first link on “Archie Norman political success” on Google
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/20/profiles.parliament
Off topic, US hotel room prices seem to have suffered a lot of inflation since I was last there.
Being in Opposition and just shouting across the despatch box is also rather different to actually having to run a department.
Norman would probably have been a very able Business or Transport Secretary for example
Now as I said twin A is currently house hunting which means it's possible to emphasis the impact students have on the local housing - in the streets where Student housing is allowed (it's blocked in some areas now due to legal cases in the past) the difference in price is about £100,000 for each additional room above 2 suitable to be a bedroom...
39% of Durham students went to private schools, compared to 31% of Oxford students and 28% of Cambridge students
https://thetab.com/uk/2023/09/18/these-are-the-universities-with-the-most-private-school-students-2023-329459
Your Councillor sounds like a grade A hypocrite and would not be one I've voted for. My local Councillor is a rare breed, a Lib Dem who has put no NIMBY bits on any of her marketing materials, which is why I voted for her in the last local election. In fact her campaign (to replace a Conservative she defeated) was instead about calling for investment in local schools and roads, something I completely support, rather than opposing development.
Housing will be affordable when we have more of it. All construction makes housing more affordable.
You don't need to change that attitude, the public sector needs reforming to enable that attitude to thrive.
The public sector will be fit for purpose when JFDI actually happens, rather than letting Sir Humphrey or various "stakeholders" perpetually stand in the way of doing anything.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/minister-investigated-for-spending-taxpayer-cash-on-tory-campaigns-nglb3hn9j
OR Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the private sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
Currently its listing Oppenheimer as only available to rent or buy, but from multiple places.
https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/oppenheimer
Apple has $160bn in cash, it could surely easily afford to buy itself complete market domination.
Others think they can simply command and cajole but when you are dealing with elected Members you have to argue and persuade and it's my experience private sector people aren't very good at that - they tend to think shouting and saying JFDI gets things done - it doesn't.
I confess having seen the standard of private sector people I'm astonished we have a functioning economy at all - we are badly let down by an inefficient and incompetent private sector.
Good management is important, but if people are standing in the way of getting things done, then those people potentially need to be removed from the system.
If you don’t understand that then there is no point in continuing this discussion
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcements - I pile cite a few examples there too.
Until “with the connivance of accountants and auditors” where you…make over-simplistic assumptions based on ignorance about entire
sectors.
Sigh…
What we are looking at is a tragic confluence of private sector people focused on their key objective whilst not interested, or understanding, the environment they are in, supported by a load of career long public sector people trained to follow instructions and otherwise keep their heads down.
To the second - no, with respect that’s very naive. For a start that only really applies to listed companies anyway, and even then the level of transparency is a million miles different.
A large part of the issue with the post office scandal, of course, was trying to run it in a private sector fashion when the service is crying out to be run as a public service.
Mistakes in the public sector can be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of colleagues, "civil servants" politicians and more being in denial of any wrongdoing with the taxpayer taking full responsibility of their neglect.
Edit - there are some fundamental issues about long term planning and implementation in the U.K., with symptoms on show in the public and private sectors in different ways. The short version is this - they are both too short termist. In Gvt this is driven by politics and in business by the markets and where we have got to with our project finance models.
The impact of surrounding communities and infrastructure should never stand in the way of housing developments, nor be the responsibility of developers. It should be the responsibility of those in charge of communities and infrastructure to respond to increased development by investing in more infrastructure if that is what is required.
Standing in the way of required development of housing because of a shortage of infrastructure solves neither the infrastructure shortage, nor the housing shortage.
Allister Heath once argued for all organisations (both public and private) to write in effect a Will describing what should happen if the business were to become bankrupt or insolvent outlining what should happen to creditors, employees, shareholders etc.
And I've dealt with poorly ran public sector, where people get the runaround and any mess is left to the taxpayer to take responsibility for, no shareholder to wipeout and no responsibility taken by those who made the mess.
No private business should ever be regarded as too big to fail.
My claim to fame, when I go to the grave, is to have achieved the biggest change to the way postmen and women are paid, since the 19th century. But it took six years of continual focus, cost the careers of two union general secretaries (one of whom went off to a second career and ended up as Home Secretary), and earned me neither fame, fortune or honour.
The skills and competencies needed to work in the public and private sector are more different than many people realise. The idiots are those who think that those that take them far in one sector can simply be dropped into a role in the other, and succeed.
It would be better if people in different roles understood the varying environments in which they work, and respect that different jobs have different challenges and require different skill sets.
En route to privatisation, the Royal Mail went out of its way to bring in a shedload of senior people from private industry (a prerequisite for which was having to pay hugely more by way of salary and bonus); I wish I was able to tell you some of the stories of how things sometimes turned out….
Vennells’ appearance before the statutory inquiry will be most instructive….perhaps.
Section 106 either provides for the developers to pay for infrastructure projects to improve the wider community or, as a condition of approval, the developer might offer to provide a new school or a health centre or a community facility which is fine to a point.
If you have a village with 500 houses and a development proposal for 500 new houses, it's going to impact the village (I don't disagree the impacts are broadly positive) and the impacts have to be taken into account. That doesn't stop the 500 being built but recognises the impact they will have on the surrounding community.
If you have a population of 1200 people living in 500 homes and the population develops to 2400 people then its going to impact the village, whether those 2400 are living now in 1000 homes or the same 500.
Population growth is happening whether you like it or not, standing in the way of development to stick your head in the sand and pretend that alleviates consequences or impact is a dismal failure that's just resulted in a chronic housing shortage, failure to invest in infrastructure, collapsing infrastructure and dismal services.
The system isn't working.
That has certainly not happened in the PO's case. If anything, partly to avoid embarrassing Ministers or at least Ministerial decisions and partly to permit the privatisation of Royal Mail, the unfolding problems were kept as quiet as possible for as long as possible, even to the extent of misleading courts and Parliament.
EXCL w/
@domhauschild
Rishi Sunak's pensions minister is under investigation for spending taxpayers cash on Tory Party in his marginal seat
Paul Maynard broke expenses rules, lashed out at whistleblower
He spent £160k on printing-more than any Tory MP
For her own protection.
Wishing the world were as you would like it is easy. And is usually symptomatic of a right winger.
Dealing with the world as it actually is requires a more intelligent approach.
The population is rising mainly because of immigration which the government has finally taken measures to control, the UK birth rate is below replacement level
Problem-solving in order to get things done in complex public sector organisations is intellectually challenging, and hugely rewarding as it leads to improved services for the public.
I don't think the private sector is some sort of nirvana. It seems to me the difference is that the character and competence of those in charge is very important and has been far too undervalued. Part of what I mean by character is the willingness to ask questions and the humility to know that you do not know everything and need to learn. Far too many people at the top lack this.
One other point is the practice of having part-time Chairmen or directors with lots of different directorships. See, for instance, Tim Cook - Chairman of the Post Office during the Vennells era who thought he could do the job in 1 & 1/2 days a week. These jobs are serious ones which really require more effort and commitment. Too often they are treated as sinecures for people who collect a load of them. Then we wonder why things go wrong.