" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Rishi Sunak has refused to endorse the partner of the disgraced former Conservative MP Peter Bone to replace him as the party’s candidate in the Wellingborough byelection.
Well it looks like even Rishi and CCHQ won't give their candidate any support, I doubt the former famed Mrs Bone will be voting for either him or his new partner either.
What's the mechanism here? Was there a way of keeping PB's partner off the shortlist?
(And it there isn't, what's to stop the Little Dunny on the Wold association selecting Boris as a candidate?)
She must have been on the CCHQ approved parliamentary candidates list, which Boris would need to be approved to be back on.
Just CCHQ clearly didn't take action to remove her after the Bone allegations
Just listening to the news, how typical it is that various politicians go on air and talk mainly about Vennells' CBE - as if that discredited bauble really matters.
They ought rather to concentrate on explaining why they didn't sort out the whole affair half a decade back. And now sort it sharpish.
Displacement activity and distracts those who are furious.
"As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy."
This may well be so. But it will have been signed off by the boss. So both are responsible. Or in @Leon's words: "all a bunch of tossers."
Also the procurement of Horizon is a key part of the Inquiry - worth listening to Jason Beer KC's opening statement on this. Why? Because Ministers and senior managers knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead. The idea that it was only in 2007 that Ministers should have become concerned is just nonsense. The poor procurement process is highly relevant to how this scandal came about and to the culture and belief it inculcated in the Post Office which lay behind its approach both to the prosecutions and the concerns / complaints raised repeatedly.
Lazy wording.
Your first really says nothing different.
Your second is true, but assumes the nature of “the problems” is singular. Yes, there were various and significant problems from the outset. As is probably true, if we could know, with most large governmental projects, certainly in the IT field. But aside from the general weaknesses of design and culture, there isn’t a straight line between the issues they had at the outset and the problem that generated the shortfalls out in the field. No-one at the time could have inferred one from the other, even if the causal weaknesses are related.
This is missing the point. The problems in the Post Office do not simply relate to the Horizon shortfalls. See the Detica report for instance. The whole way the PO was managed and the Network Transformation Programme, including the procurement of this accounting system was flawed from the start and was down to the decisions the Ministers made, the managers they put in charge and the strategy they set. The prosecutions are a consequence of those decisions and cannot be properly understood without that important context and background.
That is why I say that this is also a governance failure, as well as a legal one. That governance aspect is part of the current phase of the Inquiry. For once we will get some sort of insight into how these decisions were made which may help us do better in future.
The Post Office is trying to say that this is just about Horizon. It's one reason why they are still opposing some of the appeals, for instance. But the evidence shows that the legal failings were so great and so widespread that nothing based on what the Post Office's lawyers said can be relied on at all, regardless of whether there is any Horizon link at all. Similarly, the problems with the Post Office during this period are greater than just the prosecutions and do relate back to the decisions made in the late 1990's and subsequently. It suits the Post Office and government to ignore this but we should not do so.
For sure.
But it doesn’t follow that anyone who knew about the problems during the pilots could foresee what eventually came to transpire, which - as far as the evidence we have so far - appears to have mostly arisen from a different cause.
Saying “…knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead” is back-projecting. Fujitsu certainly should have taken the advice they were given that their product wasn’t yet fit for purpose, and delayed its release - the reasons why it didn’t being all too sadly obvious. But the customer and the owner were, at that stage, heavily reliant on the assurances from and decisions by the supplier.
I am very interested in the relationship with Fujitsu and what was going on in that company. Far too little attention has been paid to them.
And how much compensation is available from Fujitsu and their Professional liability insurance to cover the £1bn or so cost of their screw up and lies.
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Just listening to the news, how typical it is that various politicians go on air and talk mainly about Vennells' CBE - as if that discredited bauble really matters.
They ought rather to concentrate on explaining why they didn't sort out the whole affair half a decade back. And now sort it sharpish.
Displacement activity and distracts those who are furious.
"As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy."
This may well be so. But it will have been signed off by the boss. So both are responsible. Or in @Leon's words: "all a bunch of tossers."
Also the procurement of Horizon is a key part of the Inquiry - worth listening to Jason Beer KC's opening statement on this. Why? Because Ministers and senior managers knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead. The idea that it was only in 2007 that Ministers should have become concerned is just nonsense. The poor procurement process is highly relevant to how this scandal came about and to the culture and belief it inculcated in the Post Office which lay behind its approach both to the prosecutions and the concerns / complaints raised repeatedly.
Lazy wording.
Your first really says nothing different.
Your second is true, but assumes the nature of “the problems” is singular. Yes, there were various and significant problems from the outset. As is probably true, if we could know, with most large governmental projects, certainly in the IT field. But aside from the general weaknesses of design and culture, there isn’t a straight line between the issues they had at the outset and the problem that generated the shortfalls out in the field. No-one at the time could have inferred one from the other, even if the causal weaknesses are related.
This is missing the point. The problems in the Post Office do not simply relate to the Horizon shortfalls. See the Detica report for instance. The whole way the PO was managed and the Network Transformation Programme, including the procurement of this accounting system was flawed from the start and was down to the decisions the Ministers made, the managers they put in charge and the strategy they set. The prosecutions are a consequence of those decisions and cannot be properly understood without that important context and background.
That is why I say that this is also a governance failure, as well as a legal one. That governance aspect is part of the current phase of the Inquiry. For once we will get some sort of insight into how these decisions were made which may help us do better in future.
The Post Office is trying to say that this is just about Horizon. It's one reason why they are still opposing some of the appeals, for instance. But the evidence shows that the legal failings were so great and so widespread that nothing based on what the Post Office's lawyers said can be relied on at all, regardless of whether there is any Horizon link at all. Similarly, the problems with the Post Office during this period are greater than just the prosecutions and do relate back to the decisions made in the late 1990's and subsequently. It suits the Post Office and government to ignore this but we should not do so.
For sure.
But it doesn’t follow that anyone who knew about the problems during the pilots could foresee what eventually came to transpire, which - as far as the evidence we have so far - appears to have mostly arisen from a different cause.
Saying “…knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead” is back-projecting. Fujitsu certainly should have taken the advice they were given that their product wasn’t yet fit for purpose, and delayed its release - the reasons why it didn’t being all too sadly obvious. But the customer and the owner were, at that stage, heavily reliant on the assurances from and decisions by the supplier.
I am very interested in the relationship with Fujitsu and what was going on in that company. Far too little attention has been paid to them.
I’ve just realised that the chair of the evaluation board that looked at the various bids for the project right back at the beginning was someone I subsequently worked for, after they moved into the mails business. Well I never. It wouldn’t be appropriate to comment further, except to say that he never mentioned anything about the project, and it does appear that his report did correctly identify some at least of the risks with ICL/pathway’s bid, even it did nevertheless get shortlisted, and subsequently recommended, largely (it would seem) because it was the cheapest.
" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
How many people work in the CPS - it can't just have been SKS yet all the Tory Groupies seem to think he was a one man superman doing the job of 500 people....
Ah no, Sir Keir insists on the head of the party/business taking full responsibility when things aren’t done properly. He set that precedent when he was after Boris for partygate
You mean, when Johnson was photographed repeatedly and wilfully flouting his own laws?
Davey has a lot of explaining to do.
Many others do as well. Davey's mistake, which I suspect is one many new Ministers make, was to take the advice of senior civil servants and other officials without question. We've seen this with the pandemic and a rash of other issues.
Should Davey (and all other responsible MInisters) have asked more probing questions? Clearly, yes, but that's not how Government works. It may be how we would like it to work but ultimately if we went down that road nothing would get done.
On the contrary, I rather suspect that, brand new to ministerial office, Davey ignored, after an initial waver, officials’ advice not to meet Bates, and went ahead and did so. Unlike any of the others. Subsequent events have shown why the officials, if cynical, were also wise.
I doubt somehow the current Conservative attacks on Sir Ed would be any less if he hadn't met Bates.
He’d then be just one of sixteen who refused a meeting.
Rishi Sunak has refused to endorse the partner of the disgraced former Conservative MP Peter Bone to replace him as the party’s candidate in the Wellingborough byelection.
Well it looks like even Rishi and CCHQ won't give their candidate any support, I doubt the former famed Mrs Bone will be voting for either him or his new partner either.
What's the mechanism here? Was there a way of keeping PB's partner off the shortlist?
(And it there isn't, what's to stop the Little Dunny on the Wold association selecting Boris as a candidate?)
She must have been on the CCHQ approved parliamentary candidates list, which Boris would need to be approved to be back on.
Just CCHQ clearly didn't take action to remove her after the Bone allegations
I don't see the problem
1) the Tories are going to lose the seat. 2) having lost it's perfectly possible that nominations can be reopened before the general election 3) So you get rid of Mr Bone and his love interest with no real consequence given there is little chance that the tory party is going to win the election...
Also it means you have 2 elections at the same time that may reveal useful information regarding the impact Reform will have on Tory seats while also providing a means by which you can discount whatever result Reform gets.
Rishi Sunak has refused to endorse the partner of the disgraced former Conservative MP Peter Bone to replace him as the party’s candidate in the Wellingborough byelection.
Well it looks like even Rishi and CCHQ won't give their candidate any support, I doubt the former famed Mrs Bone will be voting for either him or his new partner either.
What's the mechanism here? Was there a way of keeping PB's partner off the shortlist?
(And it there isn't, what's to stop the Little Dunny on the Wold association selecting Boris as a candidate?)
Parties have approved lists of (potential) candidates - as a serving councillor, I presume Bone’s bit on the side was already on it. Whether the clown is still on it, I do not know…
" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Edit: problems found on at least five aircraft so far.
Lesson - don't sacrifice emergency exits for extra seats (revenue)?
If I've got it right, it's the other way around: the extra emergency door is not required in low-density seating configurations. It's only there in the high-density arrangements so the plane can be evacuated in time.
In low-density configurations, they replace the emergency door with a plug that apparently uses the same securing bolts as the 'proper' door.
Rishi Sunak has refused to endorse the partner of the disgraced former Conservative MP Peter Bone to replace him as the party’s candidate in the Wellingborough byelection.
Well it looks like even Rishi and CCHQ won't give their candidate any support, I doubt the former famed Mrs Bone will be voting for either him or his new partner either.
What on Earth were the local party thinking?
How do we stop Peter Bone running as an independent candidate especially given the awful selection we have to choose from.
We can’t, and you can’t, but he won’t. It appears his suggestion that he might, may have influenced the choice of Tory candidate, however…
One of the "seven" involved in what is still considered by many the greatest try ever scored - for the Barbarians against the All Blacks at the Arms Park in January 1973. The fourth of them to pass away after John Pullin, Phil Bennett and John Dawes..
Gareth Edwards, Tom David and Derek Quinnell remain.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
Rishi Sunak has refused to endorse the partner of the disgraced former Conservative MP Peter Bone to replace him as the party’s candidate in the Wellingborough byelection.
Well it looks like even Rishi and CCHQ won't give their candidate any support, I doubt the former famed Mrs Bone will be voting for either him or his new partner either.
What on Earth were the local party thinking?
How do we stop Peter Bone running as an independent candidate especially given the awful selection we have to choose from.
We can’t, and you can’t, but he won’t. It appears his suggestion that he might, may have influenced the choice of Tory candidate, however…
Which is why the constituency Tory party membership picked her - because it guaranteed Peter disappeared...
" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Yes the mood is for change and we are in difficult economic times. On the positive side for the Tories however a new Labour government would then have to deal with inflation, interest rates and sluggish growth and strikes
You say that like that's a legacy you Tories should be proud of!
(Interestingly, monarchism is now neck and neck in Scotland with republicanism.)
I see you posted about a poll commissioned by Republic which still showed monarchy with a 16% lead over a republic and support for a republic/elected head of state having fallen from 34% in the November poll they had done to just 32% now.
They simply changed the question from do you support a monarchy v a republic to do you support a monarchy v an elected head of state to get the headline they wanted and shift some monarchy supporters to DK.
If even Republic can't get a majority of Scots in their own poll to back a Republic shows how farcical the idea is.
Especially given the republican Corbyn has been replaced as Labour leader by Starmer who now backs the monarchy with reforms (and both the Tories and LDs continue to back the monarchy)
You mean, *despite* SKS taking over.
And the point I made was that the monarchists and the republicans are neck and neck. Not that the latter are a majority.
PS: still counting the Dks on your side, only sneakily and not up front. Didn't they teach you the rules of cricket at your minor "public" school/grammar school, old boy, what?
Even in a Republic poll, it cannot get a lead for a republic in Scotland. The last Yougov poll on the subject by contrast had 49% of Scots backing retaining the monarchy and only 38% for a republic
Just listening to the news, how typical it is that various politicians go on air and talk mainly about Vennells' CBE - as if that discredited bauble really matters.
They ought rather to concentrate on explaining why they didn't sort out the whole affair half a decade back. And now sort it sharpish.
Displacement activity and distracts those who are furious.
"As you yourself have identified - the idea that this whole scandal could be made to go away by playing dirty and maximising the legal costs until the other side ran out of money - will have originated from the legal profession. That Vennells went along with it is shameful, but it will have been qualified lawyers who devised, advocated and implemented that strategy."
This may well be so. But it will have been signed off by the boss. So both are responsible. Or in @Leon's words: "all a bunch of tossers."
Also the procurement of Horizon is a key part of the Inquiry - worth listening to Jason Beer KC's opening statement on this. Why? Because Ministers and senior managers knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead. The idea that it was only in 2007 that Ministers should have become concerned is just nonsense. The poor procurement process is highly relevant to how this scandal came about and to the culture and belief it inculcated in the Post Office which lay behind its approach both to the prosecutions and the concerns / complaints raised repeatedly.
Lazy wording.
Your first really says nothing different.
Your second is true, but assumes the nature of “the problems” is singular. Yes, there were various and significant problems from the outset. As is probably true, if we could know, with most large governmental projects, certainly in the IT field. But aside from the general weaknesses of design and culture, there isn’t a straight line between the issues they had at the outset and the problem that generated the shortfalls out in the field. No-one at the time could have inferred one from the other, even if the causal weaknesses are related.
This is missing the point. The problems in the Post Office do not simply relate to the Horizon shortfalls. See the Detica report for instance. The whole way the PO was managed and the Network Transformation Programme, including the procurement of this accounting system was flawed from the start and was down to the decisions the Ministers made, the managers they put in charge and the strategy they set. The prosecutions are a consequence of those decisions and cannot be properly understood without that important context and background.
That is why I say that this is also a governance failure, as well as a legal one. That governance aspect is part of the current phase of the Inquiry. For once we will get some sort of insight into how these decisions were made which may help us do better in future.
The Post Office is trying to say that this is just about Horizon. It's one reason why they are still opposing some of the appeals, for instance. But the evidence shows that the legal failings were so great and so widespread that nothing based on what the Post Office's lawyers said can be relied on at all, regardless of whether there is any Horizon link at all. Similarly, the problems with the Post Office during this period are greater than just the prosecutions and do relate back to the decisions made in the late 1990's and subsequently. It suits the Post Office and government to ignore this but we should not do so.
For sure.
But it doesn’t follow that anyone who knew about the problems during the pilots could foresee what eventually came to transpire, which - as far as the evidence we have so far - appears to have mostly arisen from a different cause.
Saying “…knew about the problems right from the start and still went ahead” is back-projecting. Fujitsu certainly should have taken the advice they were given that their product wasn’t yet fit for purpose, and delayed its release - the reasons why it didn’t being all too sadly obvious. But the customer and the owner were, at that stage, heavily reliant on the assurances from and decisions by the supplier.
I am very interested in the relationship with Fujitsu and what was going on in that company. Far too little attention has been paid to them.
I’ve just realised that the chair of the evaluation board that looked at the various bids for the project right back at the beginning was someone I subsequently worked for, after they moved into the mails business. Well I never. It wouldn’t be appropriate to comment further, except to say that he never mentioned anything about the project, and it does appear that his report did correctly identify some at least of the risks with ICL/pathway’s bid, even it did nevertheless get shortlisted, and subsequently recommended, largely (it would seem) because it was the cheapest.
What seems to have come out in the opening statement is that a lot of problems were correctly identified but that, for reasons which are not yet entirely clear, these concerns were overridden. Sometimes this seems down to political pressure, including from the Japanese government and sometimes it was because it was believed that mitigating measures could be put in place.
Alas the latter were not done. Or not followed through. So the role of Ministers and CEO's does matter here. Plus the financial constraints imposed by the PFI envelope - again imposed by Ministers - which led to the cheapest bid being preferred (because the risk was passed on from government) despite the technical issues.
From the little I have seen it is a real insight into how and why decisions are taken in government. It is worth paying attention to this, instead of the CBE nonsense - which is displacement activity, as @DavidL says, scummy as the decision to award it was and scummier still Vennells decision to hang onto it.
(Interestingly, monarchism is now neck and neck in Scotland with republicanism.)
I see you posted about a poll commissioned by Republic which still showed monarchy with a 16% lead over a republic and support for a republic/elected head of state having fallen from 34% in the November poll they had done to just 32% now.
They simply changed the question from do you support a monarchy v a republic to do you support a monarchy v an elected head of state to get the headline they wanted and shift some monarchy supporters to DK.
If even Republic can't get a majority of Scots in their own poll to back a Republic shows how farcical the idea is.
Especially given the republican Corbyn has been replaced as Labour leader by Starmer who now backs the monarchy with reforms (and both the Tories and LDs continue to back the monarchy)
You mean, *despite* SKS taking over.
And the point I made was that the monarchists and the republicans are neck and neck. Not that the latter are a majority.
PS: still counting the Dks on your side, only sneakily and not up front. Didn't they teach you the rules of cricket at your minor "public" school/grammar school, old boy, what?
Even in a Republic poll, it cannot get a lead for a republic in Scotland. The last Yougov poll on the subject by contrast had 49% of Scots backing retaining the monarchy and only 38% for a republic
The poll you quote is a quarter of a reign older. It's ouuuut of date.
On that basis you may as well also say support for a Republic/elected head of state was 34% in the November Republic poll, in this poll it has fallen to just 32%
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Kudos to him for doing it at the top of a mountain in one take with apparently no notes or prompts. And surprisingly little snow in the Rockies mid-winter?
His point about the unintended consequences of the political finance reforms being behind the move toward more ideological politics is an interesting one.
We await his next video explaining why Trump can’t beat Biden.
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
We can only speak as we find and @Casino_Royale and I were pontificating on our personal situations. We know had they been re-elected Labour would have followed a programme of spending cuts more draconian than Osborne's. Would that have made any difference?
The key was to get the income side of the public finances moving again - getting in tax receipts, both personal and busines. Osborne reasoned for every £ he raised in tax he needced to cut £5 in public spending but the problem was too many areas were declared sacrosanct (NHS, education) so the pain fell disproportionately in other areas and that's part of the legacy with which we are still living.
We're also living with the economic fallout of the pandemic but also with the decision to maintain QE long after it was required (had we returned to a normal interest rate environment much sooner we'd have been better off in the longer term). We also have to consider the Truss fiasco - well intentioned perhaps but disastrous on many levels.
The Conservatives inherited a large deficit and debt - that will also be their legacy to Labour. Perhaps someone can find a letter....
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
I have many criticisms of Starmer but the Post Office scandal is most certainly not one of them
I would be surprised if Starmer's imaginary role in the Post Office scandal isn't a discussion topic on Nick Ferrari 's show on LBC tomorrow. The Tory client media are circling the wagons. This looks bad for Davey and Starmer. The reality may be somewhat different but the optics are everything.
Watching the post office show. Can I change my Ed Davey leader at next GE prediction ?
I think a further problem for Ed Davey is that he had such little profile before this blew up, that the Post Office issue is now what he is primarily known for. Not ideal.
PLUS - reminding voters that he was a minister in a Tory-led govt is hardly ideal for someone presenting himself as the brush that sweeps them out of office.
I have many criticisms of Starmer but the Post Office scandal is most certainly not one of them
I would be surprised if Starmer's imaginary role in the Post Office scandal isn't a discussion topic on Nick Ferrari 's show on LBC tomorrow. The Tory client media are circling the wagons. This looks bad for Davey and Starmer. The reality may be somewhat different but the optics are everything.
It doesn’t raise questions about his political antennae if he didn’t realise what an opportunity it was for him to stop the prosecutions.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
We can only speak as we find and @Casino_Royale and I were pontificating on our personal situations. We know had they been re-elected Labour would have followed a programme of spending cuts more draconian than Osborne's. Would that have made any difference?
The key was to get the income side of the public finances moving again - getting in tax receipts, both personal and busines. Osborne reasoned for every £ he raised in tax he needced to cut £5 in public spending but the problem was too many areas were declared sacrosanct (NHS, education) so the pain fell disproportionately in other areas and that's part of the legacy with which we are still living.
We're also living with the economic fallout of the pandemic but also with the decision to maintain QE long after it was required (had we returned to a normal interest rate environment much sooner we'd have been better off in the longer term). We also have to consider the Truss fiasco - well intentioned perhaps but disastrous on many levels.
The Conservatives inherited a large deficit and debt - that will also be their legacy to Labour. Perhaps someone can find a letter....
To be clear I am not suggesting that the Tories have done everything right since 2010 or that it is easy now. Its just that the UK and the whole western world is far, far more stable than it was in those perilous days. As I said in my first post anyone who doesn't appreciate that really doesn't appreciate where we were.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
" United has found loose bolts and other parts on 737 Max 9 plug doors as it inspects its fleet of Boeing jets following the rapid depressurization aboard an Alaska jet, according to three people familiar with the findings."
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
It doesn't matter what I think. It matters what the voters think. And most of them think the country is broken.
I know why you dislike this superficial partisan bullshit, because you are full of your own superficial partisan bullshit. Them's the breaks.
I have many criticisms of Starmer but the Post Office scandal is most certainly not one of them
I would be surprised if Starmer's imaginary role in the Post Office scandal isn't a discussion topic on Nick Ferrari 's show on LBC tomorrow. The Tory client media are circling the wagons. This looks bad for Davey and Starmer. The reality may be somewhat different but the optics are everything.
The irony is that if SKS goes the replacement is likely to be way more photogenic than Rishi is...
And without the DPP "milestone" around the new leaders neck it's just as possible that Labour will increase it's leader over the Tory party instead of reducing it.
I suspect the all important phrase is be careful what you wish for, it may come true...
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I have many criticisms of Starmer but the Post Office scandal is most certainly not one of them
I would be surprised if Starmer's imaginary role in the Post Office scandal isn't a discussion topic on Nick Ferrari 's show on LBC tomorrow. The Tory client media are circling the wagons. This looks bad for Davey and Starmer. The reality may be somewhat different but the optics are everything.
Yes, imagine when people start asking about what has happened since 2015.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
That may be true but it's now very clear that the King's new clothes are at best threadbare...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I refer you to my answer to Casino. I know why the remaining Tories are howling at the moon on this one, but you *are* howling at it. The more you deny things are broken in a big way, the bigger the electoral beating.
Even Tories have to use public services. I don't get the denial that most of them are fucked.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
Yep. If you gut maintenence and capital budgets year in, year out in favour of "front line services" you wind up with poor productivity in decrepit estate. It really shouldn't be a surprise.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
That may be true but it's now very clear that the King's new clothes are at best threadbare...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
Interesting that the land for HS2 hasn't been sold, so it remains possible to reinstate it, albeit at vast expense. That's Starmers inheritance under Sunaks scorched earth plan.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Is ineligible to take OFFICE as President (or technically as an Officer of the US). The Constitution says nothing about someone engaging in insurrection being ineligible to be on the BALLOT for President.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
We can only speak as we find and @Casino_Royale and I were pontificating on our personal situations. We know had they been re-elected Labour would have followed a programme of spending cuts more draconian than Osborne's. Would that have made any difference?
The key was to get the income side of the public finances moving again - getting in tax receipts, both personal and busines. Osborne reasoned for every £ he raised in tax he needced to cut £5 in public spending but the problem was too many areas were declared sacrosanct (NHS, education) so the pain fell disproportionately in other areas and that's part of the legacy with which we are still living.
We're also living with the economic fallout of the pandemic but also with the decision to maintain QE long after it was required (had we returned to a normal interest rate environment much sooner we'd have been better off in the longer term). We also have to consider the Truss fiasco - well intentioned perhaps but disastrous on many levels.
The Conservatives inherited a large deficit and debt - that will also be their legacy to Labour. Perhaps someone can find a letter....
To be clear I am not suggesting that the Tories have done everything right since 2010 or that it is easy now. Its just that the UK and the whole western world is far, far more stable than it was in those perilous days. As I said in my first post anyone who doesn't appreciate that really doesn't appreciate where we were.
I couldn't disagree with you more.
Haw can you claim the western world is more stable than it was in 2010? Western democracy is under severe threat from within and without, we have an ongoing war in Europe, climate change continues to gather pace and wreak havoc, global migration is at crisis levels, and government debt is markedly higher across the West than it was in 2010.
The picture for the UK is if anything worse: chronic under-investment, housing shortages, councils going bust, health waiting lists at record levels,... the list goes on and on.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
No, the Tories and their media friends are capable of far worse. Remember Clegg was a Nazi and the Alternative Vote would have led to dead babies.
As Rawnsley wrote at the weekend, the coming campaign is going to be dire.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
That may be true but it's now very clear that the King's new clothes are at best threadbare...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
We are in for more tough years whoever wins the election and whatever policies they introduce. I seriously disagreed with the HS2 decision. We continue to get poorer at the rate of £90bn a year through our trade deficit. Things will not get better until we address that. The failure to do so is a major failure of economic policy in the last 14 years.
But really. Our banking system was on the edge of collapse. The UK taxpayer was on the hook for hundreds of billions as lender of last resort. It didn't go brilliantly, it could have been a total disaster.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
We can only speak as we find and @Casino_Royale and I were pontificating on our personal situations. We know had they been re-elected Labour would have followed a programme of spending cuts more draconian than Osborne's. Would that have made any difference?
The key was to get the income side of the public finances moving again - getting in tax receipts, both personal and busines. Osborne reasoned for every £ he raised in tax he needced to cut £5 in public spending but the problem was too many areas were declared sacrosanct (NHS, education) so the pain fell disproportionately in other areas and that's part of the legacy with which we are still living.
We're also living with the economic fallout of the pandemic but also with the decision to maintain QE long after it was required (had we returned to a normal interest rate environment much sooner we'd have been better off in the longer term). We also have to consider the Truss fiasco - well intentioned perhaps but disastrous on many levels.
The Conservatives inherited a large deficit and debt - that will also be their legacy to Labour. Perhaps someone can find a letter....
To be clear I am not suggesting that the Tories have done everything right since 2010 or that it is easy now. Its just that the UK and the whole western world is far, far more stable than it was in those perilous days. As I said in my first post anyone who doesn't appreciate that really doesn't appreciate where we were.
I couldn't disagree with you more.
Haw can you claim the western world is more stable than it was in 2010? Western democracy is under severe threat from within and without, we have an ongoing war in Europe, climate change continues to gather pace and wreak havoc, global migration is at crisis levels, and government debt is markedly higher across the West than it was in 2010.
The picture for the UK is if anything worse: chronic under-investment, housing shortages, councils going bust, health waiting lists at record levels,... the list goes on and on.
The YouGov poll respondents have it right.
Right or wrong, they have their minds made up.
Telling voters that they are wrong and stupid isn't an electoral strategy noted for success.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
No, the Tories and their media friends are capable of far worse. Remember Clegg was a Nazi and the Alternative Vote would have led to dead babies.
As Rawnsley wrote at the weekend, the coming campaign is going to be dire.
The stakes are much lower than 2019 though, indeed arguably Sunak and Starmer are closer to each other than Boris and Corbyn
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
The other difference- there was at least some evidence of a way out in 2010.
Only a nitwit would say that there was no wasteful spending to cut in 2008-10-12, or that capital assets couldn't be sweated harder for a year or three. (I'm sure that there were people saying both of those things at the time, but they were nitwits.)
The situation now is that lots of easy cuts, and some much more problematic cuts have been made, and the inevitable effects of sweating assets are coming home to roost. And in lots of areas, austerity has reached the stage in the Boy Who Cried Wolf story where the wolf actually arrived.
The next bit ain't going to be pretty, and perhaps the best service the Conservatives can render is to lose and then go unelectably tonto for a while, so at least the next government don't have to worry about electoral opposition.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
As an example - this is the sort of thing that any sane government would regard as day to day spending.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
That may be true but it's now very clear that the King's new clothes are at best threadbare...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
We are in for more tough years whoever wins the election and whatever policies they introduce. I seriously disagreed with the HS2 decision. We continue to get poorer at the rate of £90bn a year through our trade deficit. Things will not get better until we address that. The failure to do so is a major failure of economic policy in the last 14 years.
But really. Our banking system was on the edge of collapse. The UK taxpayer was on the hook for hundreds of billions as lender of last resort. It didn't go brilliantly, it could have been a total disaster.
Our problems in 2010 were acute (risk of banking collapse, high unemployment, looming crisis in the Eurozone). Now, they are chronic.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
In that case the country hasn't worked since the mid 90's, possibly the 1890s.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
That may be true but it's now very clear that the King's new clothes are at best threadbare...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
We are in for more tough years whoever wins the election and whatever policies they introduce. I seriously disagreed with the HS2 decision. We continue to get poorer at the rate of £90bn a year through our trade deficit. Things will not get better until we address that. The failure to do so is a major failure of economic policy in the last 14 years.
But really. Our banking system was on the edge of collapse. The UK taxpayer was on the hook for hundreds of billions as lender of last resort. It didn't go brilliantly, it could have been a total disaster.
You are misremembering.
Our banking system was on the edge of collapse... in 2008. That crisis was dealt with, yes at great cost to the taxpayer, by Brown and Darling in 2008/2009.
The banking system wasn't on the edge of collapse in 2010.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Can I refer you to the answer I gave to Casino. It doesn't matter what you or I think. It matters what *the voters* think. And they think you're hilarious.
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Is ineligible to take OFFICE as President (or technically as an Officer of the US). The Constitution says nothing about someone engaging in insurrection being ineligible to be on the BALLOT for President.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
No, they really can't do that. The whole basis of the Colorado decision is that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be President, and that state law prevents someone who would be ineligible from serving from being on the ballot.
SCOTUS literally cannot allow that decision to stand without agreeing he is constitutionally ineligible or (absurdly) saying he can be eligible to be President in one state but not another.
The option you're inventing just isn't going to happen.
(Interestingly, monarchism is now neck and neck in Scotland with republicanism.)
I see you posted about a poll commissioned by Republic which still showed monarchy with a 16% lead over a republic and support for a republic/elected head of state having fallen from 34% in the November poll they had done to just 32% now.
They simply changed the question from do you support a monarchy v a republic to do you support a monarchy v an elected head of state to get the headline they wanted and shift some monarchy supporters to DK.
If even Republic can't get a majority of Scots in their own poll to back a Republic shows how farcical the idea is.
Especially given the republican Corbyn has been replaced as Labour leader by Starmer who now backs the monarchy with reforms (and both the Tories and LDs continue to back the monarchy)
You mean, *despite* SKS taking over.
And the point I made was that the monarchists and the republicans are neck and neck. Not that the latter are a majority.
PS: still counting the Dks on your side, only sneakily and not up front. Didn't they teach you the rules of cricket at your minor "public" school/grammar school, old boy, what?
Even in a Republic poll, it cannot get a lead for a republic in Scotland. The last Yougov poll on the subject by contrast had 49% of Scots backing retaining the monarchy and only 38% for a republic
The poll you quote is a quarter of a reign older. It's ouuuut of date.
On that basis you may as well also say support for a Republic/elected head of state was 34% in the November Republic poll, in this poll it has fallen to just 32%
But the support for royalty has gone down a lot more.
Ah - suddenly you are excluding DKs? Or not? Are you playing cricket or croquet? We ought to be told.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Can I refer you to the answer I gave to Casino. It doesn't matter what you or I think. It matters what *the voters* think. And they think you're hilarious.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
As an example - this is the sort of thing that any sane government would regard as day to day spending.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
I expect the man on the left could pay for the pothole repairs with savings on burgers alone
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
The Post Office scandal is still ongoing. Had it not been for the ITV miniseries it would drag on for years.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Can I refer you to the answer I gave to Casino. It doesn't matter what you or I think. It matters what *the voters* think. And they think you're hilarious.
The past is always remembered fondly.
My dad says the 1970s were amazing. I guess it was before kids came along.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
As an example - this is the sort of thing that any sane government would regard as day to day spending.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
I expect the man on the left could pay for the pothole repairs with savings on burgers alone
That man was the Tory leader of Darlington Council from 2019 to 2023..
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Can I refer you to the answer I gave to Casino. It doesn't matter what you or I think. It matters what *the voters* think. And they think you're hilarious.
The past is always remembered fondly.
There's a few on here who seem to be viewing 2010 through shit-tinted glasses, tbf.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
How many subpostmasters remained convicted criminals in 2024 and had yet to receive a penny in compensation together with all the others who had had their businesses ruined, a decade after the fact of a criminal cover up came to light, thanks to a government bankrupt in both cash and moral terms that would rather turn the other cheek and continue to kick the whole matter into the long grass, and would have continued to do so had not a TV drama finally made that position untenable?
It really is amazing seeing the Post Office scandal getting so much coverage when just a couple of weeks ago many of us were banging on about it and it was still being described as "boring".
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
The Post Office scandal is still ongoing. Had it not been for the ITV miniseries it would drag on for years.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
I don't think Brexit made much difference - the bigger reason is our complete lack of productivity improvements hence we get poorer year after year relative to other countries...
Let's pull up the chart I posted earlier and remember a large number of countries have kept up that 2% or so growth...
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Is ineligible to take OFFICE as President (or technically as an Officer of the US). The Constitution says nothing about someone engaging in insurrection being ineligible to be on the BALLOT for President.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
No, they really can't do that. The whole basis of the Colorado decision is that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be President, and that state law prevents someone who would be ineligible from serving from being on the ballot.
SCOTUS literally cannot allow that decision to stand without agreeing he is constitutionally ineligible or (absurdly) saying he can be eligible to be President in one state but not another.
The option you're inventing just isn't going to happen.
Yes, they can. They are only required to interpret the US constitution which says nothing about someone who engaged in insurrection being on or off the ballot. They could say the state of Maine could interpret their electoral law that way as could any other state but that would not be a matter for the Federal highest court to rule on.
The ONLY thing the US constitution prohibits is holding OFFICE in the US after engaging in insurrection and they could say they would hold off on ruling on that until Trump is elected again, if he is
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
I disagree. The austerity project failed even on its ostensible purpose of balancing the books. Peer countries mostly had lower public debt than us a decade after the GFC and they didn't trash public services, and to some extent their economies, in the process.
I admit I was a supporter of austerity at the time, but it's hard to argue with the data. Some tightening immediately following the GFC was inevitable, but it should have been as little as was necessary for as a short a time as possible. Instead of which we got austerity as a goal.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Can I refer you to the answer I gave to Casino. It doesn't matter what you or I think. It matters what *the voters* think. And they think you're hilarious.
The past is always remembered fondly.
Well, it used to be in the halcyon days when folk were fonder, and memories stronger.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
As an example - this is the sort of thing that any sane government would regard as day to day spending.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
I expect the man on the left could pay for the pothole repairs with savings on burgers alone
That man was the Tory leader of Darlington Council from 2019 to 2023..
Well he obviously got some good meals from his leader's allowance!
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
We have different perspectives on Brexit but I wouldn't disagree with much of that. Those of us who live in Scotland are all too familiar of the consequences of a political class that is obsessed with constitutional matters rather than the day job of running the country and providing good quality services that are value for money. We have been suffering the consequences of this since at least 2014 and the consequences can be seen in all of our public sector. The failure to bring the country together again has had terrible consequences both in Scotland and in the UK.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
The Post Office scandal is still ongoing. Had it not been for the ITV miniseries it would drag on for years.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
I don't think Brexit made much difference - the bigger reason is our complete lack of productivity improvements hence we get poorer year after year relative to other countries...
Let's pull up the chart I posted earlier and remember a large number of countries have kept up that 2% or so growth...
The graphs a little small but from a quick eyeball of the red line the 'break' should surely be at 2008 not 2005.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
The Post Office scandal is still ongoing. Had it not been for the ITV miniseries it would drag on for years.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
I don't think Brexit made much difference - the bigger reason is our complete lack of productivity improvements hence we get poorer year after year relative to other countries...
Let's pull up the chart I posted earlier and remember a large number of countries have kept up that 2% or so growth...
The graphs a little small but from a quick eyeball of the red line the 'break' should surely be at 2008 not 2005.
I'm not going to quibble over that especially as the point above is about 2010 onwards.
The reality is that it's 13/15 years of minimal growth which has created the current problem...
And all austerity did was delay something that without growth is inevitable. It's almost like Truss's ideas were worth the gamble if only they hadn't arrived so late (not that that is her fault), so badly timed and so badly presented....
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
We have different perspectives on Brexit but I wouldn't disagree with much of that. Those of us who live in Scotland are all too familiar of the consequences of a political class that is obsessed with constitutional matters rather than the day job of running the country and providing good quality services that are value for money. We have been suffering the consequences of this since at least 2014 and the consequences can be seen in all of our public sector. The failure to bring the country together again has had terrible consequences both in Scotland and in the UK.
I look at the forthcoming income tax rises in Scotland and think thank God I never moved to Glasgow when we thought about it...
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Indeed. That there is something very wrong at Boeing must be obvious to even the most disinterested observer now. Multiple aircraft getting out of the factory with gross, easily visible issues like bolts not tightened all the way is astounding.
Who knows what else is wrong with these airframes. The 737-9s involved are basically band new, they don't get a through inspection (C check) for two years after delivery. So Boeing's ineptness means aircraft flying around for years with potentially lethal defects - they were very, very lucky in this instance that the 737 was still climbing out when the door blew, passengers were strapped in and the aircraft was only at 16,000ft which substantially lessened the affect of decompression.
I recommend watching the Air Crash Investigations episode 'Behind Closed Doors', which examines the issues with DC-10s suffering decompression due to door failures in the 1980s. There's also an excellent book, 'Destination Disaster', with lots of detail on why the awful managerial culture at McDonnell-Douglas lead directly to the door blow-outs and prevented efforts to fix the problem once it was known about. That culture seems to have infected Boeing after the merger.
I've come to the conclusion that opinion here is a bit unrepresentative.
You Gov: "Thinking about the condition of the UK, do you think things are currently better, worse, or about the same as they were in 2010?" Those answering "better" All - 7% 2019 Conservatives - 9% PB Tories - 75%
Really interesting short account (8 mins) of the background to the Supreme Court's coming ruling on Colorado striking down Trump. And - on the impications of the decision.
(Spoiler: If the SC rules for Trump, then Biden wins. If it rules against, all bets are off.)
Most likely it leaves it to the states in my view, at least in terms of keeping him on the ballot or not
Absolutely no chance of that happening.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
Well they have returned abortion as a decision to the states, this is the most states rights led SCOTUS in decades.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The decision on Dobbs was categorically NOT that states could interpret the US Constitution differently from one another. It was that Roe v Wade was wrongly decided and the US Constitution did not, in fact, protect a woman's right to an abortion. That left states free to allow or not allow abortions - laws restricting abortion access ceased to be unconstitutional.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
Is ineligible to take OFFICE as President (or technically as an Officer of the US). The Constitution says nothing about someone engaging in insurrection being ineligible to be on the BALLOT for President.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
No, they really can't do that. The whole basis of the Colorado decision is that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be President, and that state law prevents someone who would be ineligible from serving from being on the ballot.
SCOTUS literally cannot allow that decision to stand without agreeing he is constitutionally ineligible or (absurdly) saying he can be eligible to be President in one state but not another.
The option you're inventing just isn't going to happen.
Yes, they can. They are only required to interpret the US constitution which says nothing about someone who engaged in insurrection being on or off the ballot. They could say the state of Maine could interpret their electoral law that way as could any other state but that would not be a matter for the Federal highest court to rule on.
The ONLY thing the US constitution prohibits is holding OFFICE in the US after engaging in insurrection and they could say they would hold off on ruling on that until Trump is elected again, if he is
That is simply wrong. The Maine and Colorado decisions aren't about state electoral law, which is clear that those ineligible to take up the post are ineligible to be on the ballot (and I don't think Trump's legal team dispute that). The point of contention is exclusively the interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the effect that Trump is ineligible to be President.
If he is not, then Trump is absolutely right to say those states cannot keep him from the ballot when he meets all other requirements (signatures, filing fees and so on). There is absolutely no chance SCOTUS would have taken the case (they don't have to) if, as I believe is now your position, they may say it's all moot unless and until he's elected, so free swim for the states. It's ludicrous to think that will happen, and it definitely won't.
But we'll have to agree to disagree on this as it's banging my head against a brick wall to argue with someone who is so ignorant of how the law works. Come back to me when the decision is made. There are several possible outcomes with differing degrees of likelihood. But the one you suggest isn't one of them at all.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
It's not, but we are in an electioneering year so I suppose we have up to 12 months now of this specious and superficial partisan bullshit.
Oh I think a lot of the country is broken in 2023 in a way it wasn't in 2010.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
As an example - this is the sort of thing that any sane government would regard as day to day spending.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
I expect the man on the left could pay for the pothole repairs with savings on burgers alone
"Gentlemen, this is not a pot hole. It is damage caused by a black hole, an object of immense size ripping the fabric of spacetime itself..."
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
How many subpostmasters were wrongly locked up in 2010?
The bottom of the barrel has just been scraped.
The point is that in a country that "worked", the Horizon scandal wouldn't have happened. @RochdalePioneers is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
The Post Office scandal is still ongoing. Had it not been for the ITV miniseries it would drag on for years.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
I don't think Brexit made much difference - the bigger reason is our complete lack of productivity improvements hence we get poorer year after year relative to other countries...
Let's pull up the chart I posted earlier and remember a large number of countries have kept up that 2% or so growth...
The graphs a little small but from a quick eyeball of the red line the 'break' should surely be at 2008 not 2005.
I'm not going to quibble over that especially as the point above is about 2010 onwards.
The reality is that it's 13/15 years of minimal growth which has created the current problem...
And all austerity did was delay something that without growth is inevitable. It's almost like Truss's ideas were worth the gamble if only they hadn't arrived so late (not that that is her fault), so badly timed and so badly presented....
Truss had the right question (how to grow the economy), but didn't answer it well.
Sunak probably has accurate answers, but to the wrong question (how to meet the fiscal rule five years down the line).
It's a bit like the GB Shaw story where the punchline is "but what if they had my looks and your brains?"
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
We have different perspectives on Brexit but I wouldn't disagree with much of that. Those of us who live in Scotland are all too familiar of the consequences of a political class that is obsessed with constitutional matters rather than the day job of running the country and providing good quality services that are value for money. We have been suffering the consequences of this since at least 2014 and the consequences can be seen in all of our public sector. The failure to bring the country together again has had terrible consequences both in Scotland and in the UK.
I look at the forthcoming income tax rises in Scotland and think thank God I never moved to Glasgow when we thought about it...
Yeah, every problem that the rest of the UK has we have in spades. Poor investment. Anti-business policies by the hatful. A declining education system. A declining tax base. The services @RochdalePioneers is apparently complaining about are all devolved and the responsibility of the Scottish government.
If you start from the premise that those who go into public life actually care about these things and their consequences for people it is an appalling record. It suggests that the task the Tories have been facing has not been an easy one and it won't be any easier for Starmer either. Pretending that getting more out of the huge sums already spent on public services will be easy and that all this is somehow wilful on the part of the Tories or the SNP is just another fantasy.
‘Have any cases prosecuted by bodies other than Post Office been appealed? Yes. In addition to the appeals in which Post Office was the prosecutor, there have been six appeals to date in which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was the Respondent, not Post Office.’
I vividly remember saying AI would take over virtually all translation work, i said it here on this site, a few years ago. I was roundly scolded for being delusional
And here we are
It will only accelerate from here
“Duolingo laying off most of their translators and having the rest review AI generated translations instead of writing them will be the end game for a lot of white collar work over the next few years.
From software development to marketing to law, it’s what business will pay for”
The crap jobs will go. As Nick Palmer pointed out, machine translations speed up the rate at which he can create high quality transactions by doing lots of the scutwork.
As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable at a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probably she had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes on which the plots of novels were 'roughed in'. It was a common accident in the Fiction Department.
Duolingo laid off a huge percentage of their contract translators, and the remaining ones are simply reviewing AI translations to make sure they're 'acceptable'. This is the world we're creating. Removing the humanity from how we learn to connect with humanity. https://twitter.com/Rahll/status/1744234385891594380
Noteworthy CEOs bring in AI to replace the people doing the actual work, but not to replace themselves. When they are likely more replaceable by AI.
Many of the current managerial crop are expert at bullshit and ignorance of their business.
It seems to me that AI is admirably suited to the task. It would mean a massive decrease in sexual harassment and other HR problems, as well.
Anyone who thinks that we are in a worst situation now than 2010 has, with respect, no idea how bad things were in 2010. We had potential liabilities through our banking sector that were multiples of our national GDP, we had government spending on a level that assumed the financial money was still rolling in with no plans in place to seek to rebalance them and we had a world that wasn't much better off than we were with no clear idea which state might be the next to go. Between 2008 and 2010 the western world had a good look over the precipice.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
In 2010 the country worked. In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
I would say that is almost 100% wrong. In 2010 we were living a fantasy. A very dangerous fantasy that we were much richer and earning much more than we actually were.
I would agree, and some austerity was needed as Darling said at the time.
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
We have different perspectives on Brexit but I wouldn't disagree with much of that. Those of us who live in Scotland are all too familiar of the consequences of a political class that is obsessed with constitutional matters rather than the day job of running the country and providing good quality services that are value for money. We have been suffering the consequences of this since at least 2014 and the consequences can be seen in all of our public sector. The failure to bring the country together again has had terrible consequences both in Scotland and in the UK.
I look at the forthcoming income tax rises in Scotland and think thank God I never moved to Glasgow when we thought about it...
Yeah, every problem that the rest of the UK has we have in spades. Poor investment. Anti-business policies by the hatful. A declining education system. A declining tax base. The services @RochdalePioneers is apparently complaining about are all devolved and the responsibility of the Scottish government.
If you start from the premise that those who go into public life actually care about these things and their consequences for people it is an appalling record. It suggests that the task the Tories have been facing has not been an easy one and it won't be any easier for Starmer either. Pretending that getting more out of the huge sums already spent on public services will be easy and that all this is somehow wilful on the part of the Tories or the SNP is just another fantasy.
Not as straightforward as John makes out - the CPS has the power to take over or end private prosecutions for example that are vexatious or malicious - the Post Office was prosecuting hundreds of people, what interest did the CPS take in it & what if any review did they conduct?
Further, Seema Misra was prosecuted on behalf of the Post Office by the CPS when Keir Starmer was DPP.
Misra, recalling the moment she was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2010, said, "It's hard to say but I think that if I had not been pregnant, I would have killed myself."
Duolingo laid off a huge percentage of their contract translators, and the remaining ones are simply reviewing AI translations to make sure they're 'acceptable'. This is the world we're creating. Removing the humanity from how we learn to connect with humanity. https://twitter.com/Rahll/status/1744234385891594380
Noteworthy CEOs bring in AI to replace the people doing the actual work, but not to replace themselves. When they are likely more replaceable by AI.
Many of the current managerial crop are expert at bullshit and ignorance of their business.
It seems to me that AI is admirably suited to the task. It would mean a massive decrease in sexual harassment and other HR problems, as well.
Just wait until the AIs start bullying each other…?
Comments
He's a Bad'Un.
Just CCHQ clearly didn't take action to remove her after the Bone allegations
Can I change my Ed Davey leader at next GE prediction ?
https://www.alternativeairlines.com/airlines-not-flying-boeing-737-max
1) the Tories are going to lose the seat.
2) having lost it's perfectly possible that nominations can be reopened before the general election
3) So you get rid of Mr Bone and his love interest with no real consequence given there is little chance that the tory party is going to win the election...
Also it means you have 2 elections at the same time that may reveal useful information regarding the impact Reform will have on Tory seats while also providing a means by which you can discount whatever result Reform gets.
In low-density configurations, they replace the emergency door with a plug that apparently uses the same securing bolts as the 'proper' door.
Gareth Edwards, Tom David and Derek Quinnell remain.
Now, partly as a result, we have low growth, we still have a serious deficit, we have had another 13 years of trade deficits which cumulatively have damaged our national wealth severely and we have had a burst of inflation, albeit pretty short term. Not great but vastly more stable than we were. I mean, its not even close.
They cannot possibly countenance a situation where Trump is eligible to be President in some states and not others - essentially Schroedinger's candidate.
This is fundamentally a point of interpretation of the US Constitution, and unavoidably the reason SCOTUS exists.
In 2023 the country is broken.
Its that simple.
Alas the latter were not done. Or not followed through. So the role of Ministers and CEO's does matter here. Plus the financial constraints imposed by the PFI envelope - again imposed by Ministers - which led to the cheapest bid being preferred (because the risk was passed on from government) despite the technical issues.
From the little I have seen it is a real insight into how and why decisions are taken in government. It is worth paying attention to this, instead of the CBE nonsense - which is displacement activity, as @DavidL says, scummy as the decision to award it was and scummier still Vennells decision to hang onto it.
His point about the unintended consequences of the political finance reforms being behind the move toward more ideological politics is an interesting one.
We await his next video explaining why Trump can’t beat Biden.
In any case the constitution arguably only prohibits the President holding office after encouraging insurrection, they could say they would rule on that if he was elected before his inaugration, in terms of presidential candidates being on the ballot after encouraging insurrection the Constitution says nothing for or against. Just as it says nothing about a right or not to an abortion.
The key was to get the income side of the public finances moving again - getting in tax receipts, both personal and busines. Osborne reasoned for every £ he raised in tax he needced to cut £5 in public spending but the problem was too many areas were declared sacrosanct (NHS, education) so the pain fell disproportionately in other areas and that's part of the legacy with which we are still living.
We're also living with the economic fallout of the pandemic but also with the decision to maintain QE long after it was required (had we returned to a normal interest rate environment much sooner we'd have been better off in the longer term). We also have to consider the Truss fiasco - well intentioned perhaps but disastrous on many levels.
The Conservatives inherited a large deficit and debt - that will also be their legacy to Labour. Perhaps someone can find a letter....
PLUS - reminding voters that he was a minister in a Tory-led govt is hardly ideal for someone presenting himself as the brush that sweeps them out of office.
For example a lot of local authorities are now issuing Section 114 notices... Equally a lot of hospitals are now on the very, very last legs with no replacement in sight even though Bozo and co promised new hospitals in 2020...
I know why you dislike this superficial partisan bullshit, because you are full of your own superficial partisan bullshit. Them's the breaks.
And without the DPP "milestone" around the new leaders neck it's just as possible that Labour will increase it's leader over the Tory party instead of reducing it.
I suspect the all important phrase is be careful what you wish for, it may come true...
In 2010 there was hope, I look around now and see massively more tax being paid and public spending not deliverying anything and yet consuming even more money than the tax being raised.
Whoever takes over after the next election is going to have to make some very painful choices and I wouldn't trust Rishi to make sane decisions - his HS2 decisions are already falling apart every model says without HS2A to Crewe there is not the capacity to meet existing demand let alone expected demand.
And that's just 1 example of Rishi's random decision making by focus group...
Even Tories have to use public services. I don't get the denial that most of them are fucked.
In the Trump ballot case, that simply isn't an option. The US Constitution does, clearly, have a clause that says someone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to be President. Some states have interpreted that as meaning Trump is ineligible, others not.
It isn't option to for SCOTUS to say the Constitution is silent on the issue of eligibility. It isn't, the state decisions are explicitly based on it, and it would be completely untenable for a President to be eligible in one state but not another. It is a textbook case where there simply has to be consistency.
So there is zero chance of it being "left to states" as you say - it just isn't how the US legal system works, and your comparison with abortion rights is without any merit at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/06/labour-could-revive-hs2-northern-legs-after-government-fails-to-sell-off-land
The post 2015 wasteland of economic neglect because of the Tory civil wars over Europe was not something we needed. It will be remembered as the lost decade.
So yes it is an option for the court to say the Constitution is silent on that and it is so pedantic it could, even if it looks absurd
Haw can you claim the western world is more stable than it was in 2010? Western democracy is under severe threat from within and without, we have an ongoing war in Europe, climate change continues to gather pace and wreak havoc, global migration is at crisis levels, and government debt is markedly higher across the West than it was in 2010.
The picture for the UK is if anything worse: chronic under-investment, housing shortages, councils going bust, health waiting lists at record levels,... the list goes on and on.
The YouGov poll respondents have it right.
As Rawnsley wrote at the weekend, the coming campaign is going to be dire.
But really. Our banking system was on the edge of collapse. The UK taxpayer was on the hook for hundreds of billions as lender of last resort. It didn't go brilliantly, it could have been a total disaster.
Telling voters that they are wrong and stupid isn't an electoral strategy noted for success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g_GeQR8fJo
Only a nitwit would say that there was no wasteful spending to cut in 2008-10-12, or that capital assets couldn't be sweated harder for a year or three. (I'm sure that there were people saying both of those things at the time, but they were nitwits.)
The situation now is that lots of easy cuts, and some much more problematic cuts have been made, and the inevitable effects of sweating assets are coming home to roost. And in lots of areas, austerity has reached the stage in the Boy Who Cried Wolf story where the wolf actually arrived.
The next bit ain't going to be pretty, and perhaps the best service the Conservatives can render is to lose and then go unelectably tonto for a while, so at least the next government don't have to worry about electoral opposition.
For Rishi and the current Government this is investment money which the Government needs to borrow for.
Our banking system was on the edge of collapse... in 2008. That crisis was dealt with, yes at great cost to the taxpayer, by Brown and Darling in 2008/2009.
The banking system wasn't on the edge of collapse in 2010.
SCOTUS literally cannot allow that decision to stand without agreeing he is constitutionally ineligible or (absurdly) saying he can be eligible to be President in one state but not another.
The option you're inventing just isn't going to happen.
Ah - suddenly you are excluding DKs? Or not? Are you playing cricket or croquet? We ought to be told.
You could quite rightly suggest the UK was in a right old state in 2010 after the World credit crisis. Rochdale's assertion I suspect might be it is now substantially worse and it is largely of our own making. I won't mention the B word.
Let's pull up the chart I posted earlier and remember a large number of countries have kept up that 2% or so growth...
The ONLY thing the US constitution prohibits is holding OFFICE in the US after engaging in insurrection and they could say they would hold off on ruling on that until Trump is elected again, if he is
I admit I was a supporter of austerity at the time, but it's hard to argue with the data. Some tightening immediately following the GFC was inevitable, but it should have been as little as was necessary for as a short a time as possible. Instead of which we got austerity as a goal.
The failure to bring the country together again has had terrible consequences both in Scotland and in the UK.
The reality is that it's 13/15 years of minimal growth which has created the current problem...
And all austerity did was delay something that without growth is inevitable. It's almost like Truss's ideas were worth the gamble if only they hadn't arrived so late (not that that is her fault), so badly timed and so badly presented....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/67912287
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67918946
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/07/conservatives-face-obliteration-as-uk-in-worse-state-than-2010-tory-mp-says
Is that is?
Is that all thats left?
Who knows what else is wrong with these airframes. The 737-9s involved are basically band new, they don't get a through inspection (C check) for two years after delivery. So Boeing's ineptness means aircraft flying around for years with potentially lethal defects - they were very, very lucky in this instance that the 737 was still climbing out when the door blew, passengers were strapped in and the aircraft was only at 16,000ft which substantially lessened the affect of decompression.
I recommend watching the Air Crash Investigations episode 'Behind Closed Doors', which examines the issues with DC-10s suffering decompression due to door failures in the 1980s. There's also an excellent book, 'Destination Disaster', with lots of detail on why the awful managerial culture at McDonnell-Douglas lead directly to the door blow-outs and prevented efforts to fix the problem once it was known about. That culture seems to have infected Boeing after the merger.
You Gov: "Thinking about the condition of the UK, do you think things are currently better, worse, or about the same as they were in 2010?"
Those answering "better"
All - 7%
2019 Conservatives - 9%
PB Tories - 75%
If he is not, then Trump is absolutely right to say those states cannot keep him from the ballot when he meets all other requirements (signatures, filing fees and so on). There is absolutely no chance SCOTUS would have taken the case (they don't have to) if, as I believe is now your position, they may say it's all moot unless and until he's elected, so free swim for the states. It's ludicrous to think that will happen, and it definitely won't.
But we'll have to agree to disagree on this as it's banging my head against a brick wall to argue with someone who is so ignorant of how the law works. Come back to me when the decision is made. There are several possible outcomes with differing degrees of likelihood. But the one you suggest isn't one of them at all.
Sunak probably has accurate answers, but to the wrong question (how to meet the fiscal rule five years down the line).
It's a bit like the GB Shaw story where the punchline is "but what if they had my looks and your brains?"
If you start from the premise that those who go into public life actually care about these things and their consequences for people it is an appalling record. It suggests that the task the Tories have been facing has not been an easy one and it won't be any easier for Starmer either. Pretending that getting more out of the huge sums already spent on public services will be easy and that all this is somehow wilful on the part of the Tories or the SNP is just another fantasy.
Yes. In addition to the appeals in which Post Office was the prosecutor, there have been six appeals to date in which the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was the Respondent, not Post Office.’
https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/en/horizon-scandal-pages/faqs
These might not have been between 2008-13 when Sir Keir was in charge though
As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable
at a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probably
she had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes
on which the plots of novels were 'roughed in'. It was a common accident
in the Fiction Department.
It seems to me that AI is admirably suited to the task. It would mean a massive decrease in sexual harassment and other HR problems, as well.