November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
24th October is the day after the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Samoa.
It's also the 2 year anniversary of when Rishi became Leader, meaning he would cease to be PM on the 2 year anniversary of becoming PM. He might want that on his record.
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
24th October is the day after the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Samoa.
It's also the 2 year anniversary of when Rishi became Leader, meaning he would cease to be PM on the 2 year anniversary of becoming PM. He might want that on his record.
Halloween itself makes more sense than 14 November then.
Its still before the clocks go back, and who knows the media friendly to him might have fun with potential Nightmare Before Christmas headlines about if Labour win.
Going just after the clocks go back is dumb. So TSE is probably right, Sunak will go for 14 November then - he always does the worst possible option, so why break the habit of a lifetime?
With respect to Monday's Iowa Republican precinct caucuses
> Like the AP guide says, precinct caucus meetings will convene no sooner than 7pm. However, process will start before that, of checking IDs, confirming people are Iowa registered voters AND registered Republicans - or registering them to vote as GOPers at the caucus.
> Also as noted, there will be speeches, on behalf of POTUS candidates, but also including nomination and election of delegates to Republican county conventions, separate from but still related to the presidential preference voting.
> One function of speeches, etc. is to extend the effective POTUS preference voting period. That is, somebody who shows up after 7pm BUT before the voting process is closed, should be good to go.
> Actual counting of votes can be cumbersome, depending on number of caucus attendees, voting method (blank piece of paper or some type of ballot), level of organization AND scrutiny.
> Plus considerable variations from county to county (99), city to city, township to township. Some will have hordes, others less so. Some will count efficiently and expeditiously; others less so.
> Lot will depend upon the caliber of Iowa State Republican Party officials and volunteers running the show in Des Moines, tabulating results and reporting same to mob of media (over 1k seeking credentials by last count).
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
24th October is the day after the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Samoa.
It's also the 2 year anniversary of when Rishi became Leader, meaning he would cease to be PM on the 2 year anniversary of becoming PM. He might want that on his record.
Halloween itself makes more sense than 14 November then.
Its still before the clocks go back, and who knows the media friendly to him might have fun with potential Nightmare Before Christmas headlines about if Labour win.
Going just after the clocks go back is dumb. So TSE is probably right, Sunak will go for 14 November then - he always does the worst possible option, so why break the habit of a lifetime?
The paid political party announcements sure to be frightful.
Agnes C. Poirier @AgnesCPoirier · 6h Yesterday, the youngest carpenter of #NotreDame, the 19-year-old Leonard, tied the traditional bouquet on top of the completed nave roof.
BTW for all the talk about levels of investment, that's only part of the equation.
Rate of return on the investment has to be known as well.
A million pound investment might sound better than a thousand pound investment but if that thousand pounds brings in a return of 30% per annum and the million pounds is lost it really, really isn't.
Investment isn't an economic virility symbol but a means to an end.
Like work, investment has to be effective to be worthwhile.
Theresa May’s government pushed through a CBE for Paula Vennells, the disgraced former Post Office boss, despite concerns raised on the honours committee about the Horizon IT scandal https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1746238376922005950
Again, as in the #NU10K thread, I see no working as to why we should think there are ten thousand such people. I also see considerable vagueness as to who exactly is covered by these terms.
It all also feels a bit Poujadist, a revolt against the pettifogging bureaucrats by hardworking businessmen. Unmentioned is the role of economics, the role of capital. The complaint is targeted at a “network of central and local government, quangos, charities, pressure groups, support structures, third sector orgs, etc who make all the decisions”. Yet completely missing from this analysis is business. There’s no mention of the power held by multinationals, particularly in tech. There’s no mention of corporate malfeasance.
The Post Office scandal involved a company, Fujitsu, and a state-owned company, the Post Office, and their private lawyers. It did not involve any quangos, charities or third sector organisations, and the only pressure groups were on the side of the good guys.
It’s easy to blame Them. This is, as we’ve discussed recently, almost the definition of populism. Problems can occur in the public sector, the private sector or the third sector. I am wary of suggested explanations that sound like Gove and “Britain has had enough of experts”. I am also wary of suggested explanations based on Goodwin, someone who has gone full on culture war and lies on television about immigrants: see https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/will-the-radical-right-take-over for more.
Ah yes. The Experts.
The experts who ran the Post Office. The experts who managed the Post Office for the Government. The expert politicians who oversaw the expertise.
The experts who were generalist bullshit artists - because an actual domain expert would have got “bogged down in the detail”.
Detail like noticing the software was shit. Or detail like the destruction of people en masse.
1. You wouldn’t say a Clang is a “moon user”. “PB user” sounds sordid, potentially illegal. Just PBer. 2. “The British State currently consists of a Prime Minster and a Cabinet who take all the blame”. Wait. When did that start? The whole point of privatising the PO with one shareholder, the Primeminister is precisely so the government can blame somebody else, strikes, malfunctioning computers etc. 1. I liked Malmesburys piece. Regardless how they perform, or rotten to the core they are, they get gongs, bonuses, nice pay, and move on to one of the other jobs they can’t possibly fail in. It’s a system so obviously based on the higher echelons of the Civil Service you wouldn’t be surprised if they had a say in designing it, at the point, 1980s, they realised they could go in and out of public sector rather than staying in it their whole career.
4. “Matthew Goodwin, who needs no introduction to PB, has focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite.” At this point I suspected you are Philomena Cunk. 5. “The Road to Somewhere” homage to Hayek, or Bob Hope? 6. There’s no Elite Overproduction imo. 7. The New 10K is not “new” I think. It’s the old way - was it department of just 20k civil servants administrating the whole British Empire? Hence each country start from different place so elites therein will be different - only in UK they created it for themselves to go out of public service and back in again. 8. How can you talk about Elites without any mention of education?
Marchers out and about today chanting pro-Houthi slogans.
The Houthis being of course such poor innocent victims of unprovoked US and UK aggression. The poor dears, with their slavery, Taliban-style gender politics and oh I almost forgot, their lobbing of missiles and drones at international shipping.
Perhaps media outlets should start prefacing mediaevalist groups like this with “right wing” or “far right”. Because they are.
1. You wouldn’t say a Clang is a “moon user”. “PB user” sounds sordid, potentially illegal. Just PBer. 2. “The British State currently consists of a Prime Minster and a Cabinet who take all the blame”. Wait. When did that start? The whole point of privatising the PO with one shareholder, the Primeminister is precisely so the government can blame somebody else, strikes, malfunctioning computers etc. 1. I liked Malmesburys piece. Regardless how they perform, or rotten to the core they are, they get gongs, bonuses, nice pay, and move on to one of the other jobs they can’t possibly fail in. It’s a system so obviously based on the higher echelons of the Civil Service you wouldn’t be surprised if they had a say in designing it, at the point, 1980s, they realised they could go in and out of public sector rather than staying in it their whole career.
4. “Matthew Goodwin, who needs no introduction to PB, has focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite.” At this point I suspected you are Philomena Cunk. 5. “The Road to Somewhere” homage to Hayek, or Bob Hope? 6. There’s no Elite Overproduction imo. 7. The New 10K is not “new” I think. It’s the old way - was it department of just 20k civil servants administrating the whole British Empire? Hence each country start from different place so elites therein will be different - only in UK they created it for themselves to go out of public service and back in again. 8. How can you talk about Elites without any mention of education?
1. Meh, whatever. 4. Very good - it's definitely a bit Cunkish. 8. Also a very good point.
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
The rationale for winter elections is that although unpleasant conditions inconvenience your voters, they disrupt your opponents more. Waiting till January 2025 means not just winter but also Christmas and the New Year, when door-to-door campaigning will be suspended. Again, this negates the ground game advantage Labour, LibDems and SNP would normally enjoy.
1. You wouldn’t say a Clang is a “moon user”. “PB user” sounds sordid, potentially illegal. Just PBer. 2. “The British State currently consists of a Prime Minster and a Cabinet who take all the blame”. Wait. When did that start? The whole point of privatising the PO with one shareholder, the Primeminister is precisely so the government can blame somebody else, strikes, malfunctioning computers etc. 1. I liked Malmesburys piece. Regardless how they perform, or rotten to the core they are, they get gongs, bonuses, nice pay, and move on to one of the other jobs they can’t possibly fail in. It’s a system so obviously based on the higher echelons of the Civil Service you wouldn’t be surprised if they had a say in designing it, at the point, 1980s, they realised they could go in and out of public sector rather than staying in it their whole career.
4. “Matthew Goodwin, who needs no introduction to PB, has focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite.” At this point I suspected you are Philomena Cunk. 5. “The Road to Somewhere” homage to Hayek, or Bob Hope? 6. There’s no Elite Overproduction imo. 7. The New 10K is not “new” I think. It’s the old way - was it department of just 20k civil servants administrating the whole British Empire? Hence each country start from different place so elites therein will be different - only in UK they created it for themselves to go out of public service and back in again. 8. How can you talk about Elites without any mention of education?
Much food for thought - but you got my "like" for the "Hayek or Hope" joke!
Of course they don’t want a deal. It’s the no1 issue hurting Biden in the polls.
So, let me get this straight: The Senate has reached a BIPARTISAN border deal, but “Speaker” Mike Johnson just said he refuses to even consider it. NONE of this is President Biden’s or Democrats’ fault. This is all on Republicans & it’s beneath contempt. They simply don’t care. https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1746270669514699206
Not quite as stupid as recalling Parliament to relive Ed Miliband's finest hour.
The argument not to recall parliament is not to telegraph to enemies details of your secret attack, so they are not waiting for your planes and pilots like so much practice they had in their recent war.
Schoolboy errors on a daily basis from Rishi’s government.
Marchers out and about today chanting pro-Houthi slogans.
The Houthis being of course such poor innocent victims of unprovoked US and UK aggression. The poor dears, with their slavery, Taliban-style gender politics and oh I almost forgot, their lobbing of missiles and drones at international shipping.
Perhaps media outlets should start prefacing mediaevalist groups like this with “right wing” or “far right”. Because they are.
Theresa May’s government pushed through a CBE for Paula Vennells, the disgraced former Post Office boss, despite concerns raised on the honours committee about the Horizon IT scandal https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1746238376922005950
Why ?
‘Cause that’s how it rolls. Unless you actively try and stop it. See Gove’s account of his time as education minister - the names get added back to the list, and they dare you to cross them out.
Remember, Vennells was *owed*. For all that magnificent, hard work. For being a Team Player. For being a Good Chap(ess).
The simple path is to sign the list. Be a cooperative minister. Not rock the boat.
And yes, they are guilty for going along with the consensus.
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
The rationale for winter elections is that although unpleasant conditions inconvenience your voters, they disrupt your opponents more. Waiting till January 2025 means not just winter but also Christmas and the New Year, when door-to-door campaigning will be suspended. Again, this negates the ground game advantage Labour, LibDems and SNP would normally enjoy.
Theresa May’s government pushed through a CBE for Paula Vennells, the disgraced former Post Office boss, despite concerns raised on the honours committee about the Horizon IT scandal https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1746238376922005950
Why ?
I can have a go at answering that. The Lobby System. Some are just very good and strong in the lobby system.
For example, for the last 9 years it’s obvious to anyone taking interest that the PO scandal is a scandal with some horrible things done to victims, why has it taken so long for government to acknowledge this?
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
The rationale for winter elections is that although unpleasant conditions inconvenience your voters, they disrupt your opponents more. Waiting till January 2025 means not just winter but also Christmas and the New Year, when door-to-door campaigning will be suspended. Again, this negates the ground game advantage Labour, LibDems and SNP would normally enjoy.
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
The rationale for winter elections is that although unpleasant conditions inconvenience your voters, they disrupt your opponents more. Waiting till January 2025 means not just winter but also Christmas and the New Year, when door-to-door campaigning will be suspended. Again, this negates the ground game advantage Labour, LibDems and SNP would normally enjoy.
Yes but the calculation is whether it harms the Opposition parties more than the Conservatives.
Even if it gives the Conservatives a logistical advantage, that will be outweighed by the "pissing off the electorate for no good reason" and "looking like you're hiding from the voters" factors.
Question I have re: Paula Vennells ex-gong, is WHO(M) in the May govt was so eager for her to get it? - and WHY??
Who would feel a natural sympathy with a CofE woman priest?
It wasn't May who recommended her for the honour, it was the honours cttee.
Mandelson meanwhile still seems to have largely managed to evade much scrutiny for the fact that he was pivotal in waving through the Horizon IT system.
'Evidence to the probe shows the next day, on 10 December 1998, then business secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
Lord Mandelson said in a letter that "the basic development work has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who have pronounced it viable, robust and of a design which should accommodate future technological developments".
We should adopt Thanksgiving but make it British. The day of Giving Thanks for the British Empire, which exported our language and culture all over the world, not least to the USA, meaning we can go into any hotel in any town in any country, and expect to be understood
To make it more fun we should all wear colonial attire, and eat chicken tikka masala
Of course they don’t want a deal. It’s the no1 issue hurting Biden in the polls.
So, let me get this straight: The Senate has reached a BIPARTISAN border deal, but “Speaker” Mike Johnson just said he refuses to even consider it. NONE of this is President Biden’s or Democrats’ fault. This is all on Republicans & it’s beneath contempt. They simply don’t care. https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1746270669514699206
Perhaps the Dems should have considered that getting rid of Kevin McCarthy would have led to his replacement by someone less willing to be bipartisan.
So yes the Dems share in the blame for any political gridlock.
Question I have re: Paula Vennells ex-gong, is WHO(M) in the May govt was so eager for her to get it? - and WHY??
Who would feel a natural sympathy with a CofE woman priest?
It wasn't May who recommended her for the honour, it was the honours cttee.
Mandelson meanwhile still seems to have largely managed to evade much scrutiny for the fact that he was pivotal in waving through the Horizon IT system.
'Evidence to the probe shows the next day, on 10 December 1998, then business secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
Lord Mandelson said in a letter that "the basic development work has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who have pronounced it viable, robust and of a design which should accommodate future technological developments".
And who put Ms Vennells to the honours committee? That's 'recommendation' byu ordinary people's standards, if not the standards, or lack of them, shown by someone who's wriggling to get the Tories off the hook.
No-one reads the manual. I've recently sent someone a BMW 1-minute video because he did not know how to do something on his BMW, which he'd had for two years, and a deaf person instructions on how to turn on Chrome's automatic subtitles. And tbh I often don't bother reading about the new facilities introduced with each web browser update unless I'm really bored.
November 2024 seems bonkers to me. People get more miserable after the clocks go back and its suddenly dark much earlier, why would you have the election then rather than October?
As late as possible yes, but if going before Christmas then surely 24 October is last reasonable date. 31 October is just too riddled with Halloween jokes and November is after clocks change.
If not 24 October, then its surely January 25?
The rationale for winter elections is that although unpleasant conditions inconvenience your voters, they disrupt your opponents more. Waiting till January 2025 means not just winter but also Christmas and the New Year, when door-to-door campaigning will be suspended. Again, this negates the ground game advantage Labour, LibDems and SNP would normally enjoy.
Yes but the calculation is whether it harms the Opposition parties more than the Conservatives.
Even if it gives the Conservatives a logistical advantage, that will be outweighed by the "pissing off the electorate for no good reason" and "looking like you're hiding from the voters" factors.
Again, the question is whether pissed off Tory voters are more or less likely to turn out than pissed off Labour, LibDem or SNP voters.
We should adopt Thanksgiving but make it British. The day of Giving Thanks for the British Empire, which exported our language and culture all over the world, not least to the USA, meaning we can go into any hotel in any town in any country, and expect to be understood
To make it more fun we should all wear colonial attire, and eat chicken tikka masala
Of course, at the first Thanksgiving the Boston settlers were indeed British, so for its first 150 years or so it was a British holiday.
No-one reads the manual. I've recently sent someone a BMW 1-minute video because he did not know how to do something on his BMW, which he'd had for two years, and a deaf person instructions on how to turn on Chrome's automatic subtitles. And tbh I often don't bother reading about the new facilities introduced with each web browser update unless I'm really bored.
Of course they don’t want a deal. It’s the no1 issue hurting Biden in the polls.
So, let me get this straight: The Senate has reached a BIPARTISAN border deal, but “Speaker” Mike Johnson just said he refuses to even consider it. NONE of this is President Biden’s or Democrats’ fault. This is all on Republicans & it’s beneath contempt. They simply don’t care. https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1746270669514699206
Perhaps the Dems should have considered that getting rid of Kevin McCarthy would have led to his replacement by someone less willing to be bipartisan.
So yes the Dems share in the blame for any political gridlock.
Right now the biggest challenge to Speaker Mike Johnson, is from his erstwhile fellow wingnut Republicans in the US House. Blocking any deal is survival politics; fact that it's US Senate deal backed by US Senate GOP, just makes it better as red meet MJ can throw to the (or rather his) wolves.
Question I have re: Paula Vennells ex-gong, is WHO(M) in the May govt was so eager for her to get it? - and WHY??
Who would feel a natural sympathy with a CofE woman priest?
It wasn't May who recommended her for the honour, it was the honours cttee.
Mandelson meanwhile still seems to have largely managed to evade much scrutiny for the fact that he was pivotal in waving through the Horizon IT system.
'Evidence to the probe shows the next day, on 10 December 1998, then business secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
Lord Mandelson said in a letter that "the basic development work has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who have pronounced it viable, robust and of a design which should accommodate future technological developments".
And who put Ms Vennells to the honours committee? That's 'recommendation' byu ordinary people's standards, if not the standards, or lack of them, shown by someone who's wriggling to get the Tories off the hook.
The Department for Business put Vennells to the honours cttee.
I would also say Mandelson when he was Business Secretary waving through the Horizon system in the first place despite concerns which even initially hesitated Blair is rather more significant to this story than the recommendation or not of Vennells for a minor honour before the PO scandal had fully come to light
Some context for the next time Trump attacks the character of a witness against him..
Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump’s new character witness. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1746137387657252961
Sorry I missed this thread. I read through comments, but still have not seen what an "elite" actually does beyond running things. Other than abolishing power-based organisation, i.e. anarchism, is it possible to not have an "elite"?
No-one reads the manual. I've recently sent someone a BMW 1-minute video because he did not know how to do something on his BMW, which he'd had for two years, and a deaf person instructions on how to turn on Chrome's automatic subtitles. And tbh I often don't bother reading about the new facilities introduced with each web browser update unless I'm really bored.
Today I had a delivery of a 'space heater' which came with the usual 1mm font manual in 50 languages. So searched the internet for a pdf. To no success.
So had to take a photo of the 1mm manual and then zoom it up on my computer.
However, NOW I know how to turn it on. Thus, I win.
Question I have re: Paula Vennells ex-gong, is WHO(M) in the May govt was so eager for her to get it? - and WHY??
Who would feel a natural sympathy with a CofE woman priest?
It wasn't May who recommended her for the honour, it was the honours cttee.
Mandelson meanwhile still seems to have largely managed to evade much scrutiny for the fact that he was pivotal in waving through the Horizon IT system.
'Evidence to the probe shows the next day, on 10 December 1998, then business secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
Lord Mandelson said in a letter that "the basic development work has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who have pronounced it viable, robust and of a design which should accommodate future technological developments".
And who put Ms Vennells to the honours committee? That's 'recommendation' byu ordinary people's standards, if not the standards, or lack of them, shown by someone who's wriggling to get the Tories off the hook.
The Department for Business put Vennells to the honours cttee.
I would also say Mandelson waving through the Horizon system in the first place despite concerns which even initially hesitated Blair is rather more significant to this story than the recommendation or not of Vennells for a minor honour before the PO scandal had fully come to light
It all comes down to whether politicians wave stuff through on “advice” or are “difficult” and push back.
Mandelbrot did what he did on the advice of officials. As did Davey. As did all the others, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem.
Note who comes well out of this. The “difficult” people.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and you are more than welcome to share it.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
Theresa May’s government pushed through a CBE for Paula Vennells, the disgraced former Post Office boss, despite concerns raised on the honours committee about the Horizon IT scandal https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1746238376922005950
Why ?
I have a theory based on 2 intriguing sentences in the Times article.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and you are more than welcome to share it.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
The problem with Thanksgiving is that it's too close to Christmas.
@Peter_the_Punter: Actually no I hadn't read Vilfredo Pareto, although I know his name in a statistical context. @Cleitophon: fair enough. I'll try to do a piece on the 2024 Finnish presidential election later this month @Jim_Miller: I shall try to read C. Wright Mills' "The Power Elite" and Robert Dahl's "Who Governs" @Northern_Al, @bondegezou: My article and @Malmesbury's were written independently and ignorant of each other and I could not include your comments to that article as mine had already gone off. I apologise for making you repeat. @Sunil_Prasannan: I think he's given a name in the novelization. @slade: is your PhD published? I would like to read it. @kyf_100: You might like to read "End Times" https://www.waterstones.com/book/end-times/peter-turchin//9780141999289 @rottenborough: thatnk you for: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/books/review/the-99-percent-matthew-stewart.html @MoonRabbit: I checked my underpants and am not Philomena Cunk. Somebody once wrote a children's book which started "Big Bear was a big bear. Little Bear was a little bear". My sentence “...focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite" was a deliberate joke based on that. @MoonRabbit: "Hasn’t taught me anything yet though". Fair enough. The intent was to present different definitions of "the elite". Given the size of the task it was obviously too short and covered too little. Best I could do in the time and size, apologies
This article was submitted as an early draft and unsourced. Illustrations, diagrams and points from your comments will be added and this expanded version presented to you backstage at a later date.
Once again, thank you: your contributions will make the work much better and has hopefully engaged your interest. Thanks again to @TSE and @rcs1000 for publishing it.
Some context for the next time Trump attacks the character of a witness against him..
Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump’s new character witness. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1746137387657252961
Why did a serial killer like Gravano sully his reputation by associating with Trump?
Re: US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Bible Belt) note that House Democrats did NOT have realistic option for supporting former Speaker Kevin McCarth (R-Vested Interest) because KMcC was unwilling to commit to a deal with the Dems.
One big reason being, unwillingness of many House Republicans to (publicly) support such a deal, or such a deal-making Speaker.
And absent such commitment, no reason for Dems to believe, that Mis-Rule of Kevin McCarthy any better or worse OR any more stable, than the Reign of Error of Mike Johnson.
Some context for the next time Trump attacks the character of a witness against him..
Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump’s new character witness. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1746137387657252961
Why did a serial killer like Gravano sully his reputation by associating with Trump?
Some context for the next time Trump attacks the character of a witness against him..
Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump’s new character witness. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1746137387657252961
Why did a serial killer like Gravano sully his reputation by associating with Trump?
Re: US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Bible Belt) note that House Democrats did NOT have realistic option for supporting former Speaker Kevin McCarth (R-Vested Interest) because KMcC was unwilling to commit to a deal with the Dems.
One big reason being, unwillingness of many House Republicans to (publicly) support such a deal, or such a deal-making Speaker.
And absent such commitment, no reason for Dems to believe, that Mis-Rule of Kevin McCarthy any better or worse OR any more stable, than the Reign of Error of Mike Johnson.
The House GOP line seems to be that unless the Democrats accept the policy demands of a dozen or so of the most extreme GOP members, then no deals.
" He defines the New Elite as Oxbridge/Russell Group graduates in managerial jobs with liberal cosmopolitan values who are overrepresented in decision-making and represent about a quarter of the population"
Almost by definition, the managerial classes are going (more likely than not) going to be educated at top universities.
Is this a new phenomena? Maybe if it is, it's because more people are educated at university.
Yep, Goodwin's theory is, well, duh. I'm shocked, shocked to find out that upper middle class people go to good universities and get good jobs.
Turchin is the most interesting of the named theorists in the thread header (sorry, Malmesbury!) because, as the thread header astutely points out, an elite class has always existed. It just changes over time.
Malmesbury's NU10K is interesting in that it attempts to define who those elites are, in the present day. I'd go a little further and say that the UK is cursed by managerialism, by people who think their job is to manage, rather than improve. To keep things ticking over. Essentially the NU10K are all "quiet quitters".
But the reason why Turchin is so interesting is because his theory of overproduction of elites chimes so well with what we're seeing in (and sorry I'm going to say it), woke. When you believe you should have elite status, but your job lacks that kind of status, you resort to alternative signalling. In the past, someone might have worn Cartier or Rolex to signify their 'elite' status. But these days, it's about beliefs. A Washington Post journalist can't afford a Rolex, in fact they're likely living in a four person house share given salaries these days. So instead they adopt the virtues and mores of the 'elite' which Goodwin describes, which is overwhelmingly metropolitan and socially liberal.
And so it becomes a competition among wannabe-elites for who can signal the most 'liberal' opinions. This not only explains the "capture" of the media and universities -formerly high status professions- by "woke", it also explains the shift towards ever more radical opinions, as surplus wannabe-elites constantly try to out-do each other in status signalling.
Those who aren't part of the game - the red wall in the UK or the rust belt in the US, are just baffled by it all. To them it just looks like people who've gone mad, who've lost their sense of common sense. And so the divide between the wokerati and the rest grows year on year. With the inevitable polarisation of politics that comes with it, that we have seen in recent years.
I don't think that this is the correct explanation at all. The "elites" also include Donald Trump and Elon Musk. No doubt some people adopt the beliefs of these people to signify their admiration, but they can't possibly think that they JOIN them in doing so. And it certainly fails to explain how people end up ANTI-woke (are they trying to signal that they're slobs?).
The more likely explanations to me is that this is just normal cultural transmission of a salient generational divide, where one side appeals slightly more to younger / more-educated / more-successful people - and of course, this is far from true about everything in the "woke" bucket - no "elite" in America is hankering to hand the USA back to American Indians, for example.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and you are more than welcome to share it.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
The problem with Thanksgiving is that it's too close to Christmas.
Canadians have solved THAT problem, by having Thanksgiving in October.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and you are more than welcome to share it.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
Shocked to the very core of my being, that YOU of all people are a Norman Rockwell fan.
28th November is Thanksgiving - it might not generate the best message for Sunak if he chooses that date.
How about July 4th? To celebrate getting shot of the puritan fanatics across the pond.
Good morning. In less than an hour, political activists from here will join others from around these islands, and you will be launching the largest Electoral battle in the history of mankind. [pauses] Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as a British holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!
" He defines the New Elite as Oxbridge/Russell Group graduates in managerial jobs with liberal cosmopolitan values who are overrepresented in decision-making and represent about a quarter of the population"
Almost by definition, the managerial classes are going (more likely than not) going to be educated at top universities.
Is this a new phenomena? Maybe if it is, it's because more people are educated at university.
Yep, Goodwin's theory is, well, duh. I'm shocked, shocked to find out that upper middle class people go to good universities and get good jobs.
Turchin is the most interesting of the named theorists in the thread header (sorry, Malmesbury!) because, as the thread header astutely points out, an elite class has always existed. It just changes over time.
Malmesbury's NU10K is interesting in that it attempts to define who those elites are, in the present day. I'd go a little further and say that the UK is cursed by managerialism, by people who think their job is to manage, rather than improve. To keep things ticking over. Essentially the NU10K are all "quiet quitters".
But the reason why Turchin is so interesting is because his theory of overproduction of elites chimes so well with what we're seeing in (and sorry I'm going to say it), woke. When you believe you should have elite status, but your job lacks that kind of status, you resort to alternative signalling. In the past, someone might have worn Cartier or Rolex to signify their 'elite' status. But these days, it's about beliefs. A Washington Post journalist can't afford a Rolex, in fact they're likely living in a four person house share given salaries these days. So instead they adopt the virtues and mores of the 'elite' which Goodwin describes, which is overwhelmingly metropolitan and socially liberal.
And so it becomes a competition among wannabe-elites for who can signal the most 'liberal' opinions. This not only explains the "capture" of the media and universities -formerly high status professions- by "woke", it also explains the shift towards ever more radical opinions, as surplus wannabe-elites constantly try to out-do each other in status signalling.
Those who aren't part of the game - the red wall in the UK or the rust belt in the US, are just baffled by it all. To them it just looks like people who've gone mad, who've lost their sense of common sense. And so the divide between the wokerati and the rest grows year on year. With the inevitable polarisation of politics that comes with it, that we have seen in recent years.
I don't think that this is the correct explanation at all. The "elites" also include Donald Trump and Elon Musk. No doubt some people adopt the beliefs of these people to signify their admiration, but they can't possibly think that they JOIN them in doing so. And it certainly fails to explain how people end up ANTI-woke (are they trying to signal that they're slobs?).
The more likely explanations to me is that this is just normal cultural transmission of a salient generational divide, where one side appeals slightly more to younger / more-educated / more-successful people - and of course, this is far from true about everything in the "woke" bucket - no "elite" in America is hankering to hand the USA back to American Indians, for example.
I sometimes think of 'the elite' as the static from an untuned radio. You can, if you squint, hear left wing, right wing, liberal, commie, voices.
But the static remains there - busy in it's own aloof business. Fizzling about above your 20khz hearing.
FM reduced down to you by their Squealer's in the fourth estate - whether echoing or reverbing.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and you are more than welcome to share it.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
The problem with Thanksgiving is that it's too close to Christmas.
Canadians have solved THAT problem, by having Thanksgiving in October.
" He defines the New Elite as Oxbridge/Russell Group graduates in managerial jobs with liberal cosmopolitan values who are overrepresented in decision-making and represent about a quarter of the population"
Almost by definition, the managerial classes are going (more likely than not) going to be educated at top universities.
Is this a new phenomena? Maybe if it is, it's because more people are educated at university.
Yep, Goodwin's theory is, well, duh. I'm shocked, shocked to find out that upper middle class people go to good universities and get good jobs.
Turchin is the most interesting of the named theorists in the thread header (sorry, Malmesbury!) because, as the thread header astutely points out, an elite class has always existed. It just changes over time.
Malmesbury's NU10K is interesting in that it attempts to define who those elites are, in the present day. I'd go a little further and say that the UK is cursed by managerialism, by people who think their job is to manage, rather than improve. To keep things ticking over. Essentially the NU10K are all "quiet quitters".
But the reason why Turchin is so interesting is because his theory of overproduction of elites chimes so well with what we're seeing in (and sorry I'm going to say it), woke. When you believe you should have elite status, but your job lacks that kind of status, you resort to alternative signalling. In the past, someone might have worn Cartier or Rolex to signify their 'elite' status. But these days, it's about beliefs. A Washington Post journalist can't afford a Rolex, in fact they're likely living in a four person house share given salaries these days. So instead they adopt the virtues and mores of the 'elite' which Goodwin describes, which is overwhelmingly metropolitan and socially liberal.
And so it becomes a competition among wannabe-elites for who can signal the most 'liberal' opinions. This not only explains the "capture" of the media and universities -formerly high status professions- by "woke", it also explains the shift towards ever more radical opinions, as surplus wannabe-elites constantly try to out-do each other in status signalling.
Those who aren't part of the game - the red wall in the UK or the rust belt in the US, are just baffled by it all. To them it just looks like people who've gone mad, who've lost their sense of common sense. And so the divide between the wokerati and the rest grows year on year. With the inevitable polarisation of politics that comes with it, that we have seen in recent years.
I don't think that this is the correct explanation at all. The "elites" also include Donald Trump and Elon Musk. No doubt some people adopt the beliefs of these people to signify their admiration, but they can't possibly think that they JOIN them in doing so. And it certainly fails to explain how people end up ANTI-woke (are they trying to signal that they're slobs?).
The more likely explanations to me is that this is just normal cultural transmission of a salient generational divide, where one side appeals slightly more to younger / more-educated / more-successful people - and of course, this is far from true about everything in the "woke" bucket - no "elite" in America is hankering to hand the USA back to American Indians, for example.
I sometimes think of 'the elite' as the static from an untuned radio. You can, if you squint, hear left wing, right wing, liberal, commie, voices.
But the static remains there - busy in it's own aloof business. Fizzling about above your 20khz hearing.
FM reduced down to you by their Squealer's in the fourth estate - whether echoing or reverbing.
From what we've heard, its "business" is running large organisations. Of course it has little to do with your daily life, unless you are in charge of a few tens of thousands of staff-customer interactions each day or administer hundreds of millions of pounds of financial flows a year.
Well that's it then! The final nail in Starmer's political coffin.
Disgraced former Prime Minister and alleged (really?) former national security liability Alexander Johnson (who you may remember shook off his minders to attend a party in Italy at the Villa of an alleged former KGB agent) condemns Starmer as a national security threat and friend to the Houthi rebels.
Again, as in the #NU10K thread, I see no working as to why we should think there are ten thousand such people. I also see considerable vagueness as to who exactly is covered by these terms.
It all also feels a bit Poujadist, a revolt against the pettifogging bureaucrats by hardworking businessmen. Unmentioned is the role of economics, the role of capital. The complaint is targeted at a “network of central and local government, quangos, charities, pressure groups, support structures, third sector orgs, etc who make all the decisions”. Yet completely missing from this analysis is business. There’s no mention of the power held by multinationals, particularly in tech. There’s no mention of corporate malfeasance.
The Post Office scandal involved a company, Fujitsu, and a state-owned company, the Post Office, and their private lawyers. It did not involve any quangos, charities or third sector organisations, and the only pressure groups were on the side of the good guys.
It’s easy to blame Them. This is, as we’ve discussed recently, almost the definition of populism. Problems can occur in the public sector, the private sector or the third sector. I am wary of suggested explanations that sound like Gove and “Britain has had enough of experts”. I am also wary of suggested explanations based on Goodwin, someone who has gone full on culture war and lies on television about immigrants: see https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/will-the-radical-right-take-over for more.
Ah yes. The Experts.
The experts who ran the Post Office. The experts who managed the Post Office for the Government. The expert politicians who oversaw the expertise.
The experts who were generalist bullshit artists - because an actual domain expert would have got “bogged down in the detail”.
Detail like noticing the software was shit. Or detail like the destruction of people en masse.
A domain expert in the Post Office would have been a postman or perhaps a stamp collector. Why do we think they would have known about the details of software?
" He defines the New Elite as Oxbridge/Russell Group graduates in managerial jobs with liberal cosmopolitan values who are overrepresented in decision-making and represent about a quarter of the population"
Almost by definition, the managerial classes are going (more likely than not) going to be educated at top universities.
Is this a new phenomena? Maybe if it is, it's because more people are educated at university.
Isn't one of the problems today that more people are entering higher levels of management of both public services and private companies without actually having spent much, or even any, time actually doing the job in lower levels, either at the 'coalface' or in lower and middle management?
Certainly this is one of the complaints I hear from friends in the police force.
A couple of friends I had dinner with last week - one a former head of child psychiatric services for a big trust (having come up from being a pyshciatric nurse 30 years ago) and the other the head of pharmacy for a trust - both said that far too many of the nurses entering via the degree shcemes already have their eyes on career progression into mangerial positions and are not really interested in the basic day to day job of nursing.
No-one reads the manual. I've recently sent someone a BMW 1-minute video because he did not know how to do something on his BMW, which he'd had for two years, and a deaf person instructions on how to turn on Chrome's automatic subtitles. And tbh I often don't bother reading about the new facilities introduced with each web browser update unless I'm really bored.
You should do a weekly header for the rest of us.
When I worked for a global megacorp, the company had a monthly webcast on new phone and app features.
28th November is Thanksgiving - it might not generate the best message for Sunak if he chooses that date.
How about July 4th? To celebrate getting shot of the puritan fanatics across the pond.
Good morning. In less than an hour, political activists from here will join others from around these islands, and you will be launching the largest Electoral battle in the history of mankind. [pauses] Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as a British holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!
[Crowd cheers!]
(Just don't mention you'll need to use a suicide bomber to kick things off....)
" He defines the New Elite as Oxbridge/Russell Group graduates in managerial jobs with liberal cosmopolitan values who are overrepresented in decision-making and represent about a quarter of the population"
Almost by definition, the managerial classes are going (more likely than not) going to be educated at top universities.
Is this a new phenomena? Maybe if it is, it's because more people are educated at university.
Yep, Goodwin's theory is, well, duh. I'm shocked, shocked to find out that upper middle class people go to good universities and get good jobs.
Turchin is the most interesting of the named theorists in the thread header (sorry, Malmesbury!) because, as the thread header astutely points out, an elite class has always existed. It just changes over time.
Malmesbury's NU10K is interesting in that it attempts to define who those elites are, in the present day. I'd go a little further and say that the UK is cursed by managerialism, by people who think their job is to manage, rather than improve. To keep things ticking over. Essentially the NU10K are all "quiet quitters".
But the reason why Turchin is so interesting is because his theory of overproduction of elites chimes so well with what we're seeing in (and sorry I'm going to say it), woke. When you believe you should have elite status, but your job lacks that kind of status, you resort to alternative signalling. In the past, someone might have worn Cartier or Rolex to signify their 'elite' status. But these days, it's about beliefs. A Washington Post journalist can't afford a Rolex, in fact they're likely living in a four person house share given salaries these days. So instead they adopt the virtues and mores of the 'elite' which Goodwin describes, which is overwhelmingly metropolitan and socially liberal.
And so it becomes a competition among wannabe-elites for who can signal the most 'liberal' opinions. This not only explains the "capture" of the media and universities -formerly high status professions- by "woke", it also explains the shift towards ever more radical opinions, as surplus wannabe-elites constantly try to out-do each other in status signalling.
Those who aren't part of the game - the red wall in the UK or the rust belt in the US, are just baffled by it all. To them it just looks like people who've gone mad, who've lost their sense of common sense. And so the divide between the wokerati and the rest grows year on year. With the inevitable polarisation of politics that comes with it, that we have seen in recent years.
I don't think that this is the correct explanation at all. The "elites" also include Donald Trump and Elon Musk. No doubt some people adopt the beliefs of these people to signify their admiration, but they can't possibly think that they JOIN them in doing so. And it certainly fails to explain how people end up ANTI-woke (are they trying to signal that they're slobs?).
The more likely explanations to me is that this is just normal cultural transmission of a salient generational divide, where one side appeals slightly more to younger / more-educated / more-successful people - and of course, this is far from true about everything in the "woke" bucket - no "elite" in America is hankering to hand the USA back to American Indians, for example.
I suggest you read Rob Henderson on "luxury beliefs" (as opposed to "luxury goods")
Combining that with Turchin, the theory is that if you have an overproduction of elites, the surplus elites will attempt to signal their status with increasingly extreme luxury beliefs.
You're welcome to think it's wrong - I think it explains a great deal of what we've seen in the last decade or so.
Comments
🚨 NEW: The US govt and Joe Biden CUT political engagement with Rishi Sunak in the lead-up to the Houthi strikes
Diplomat: "The leaks in the hours before the attack really pissed off the US to the extent that engagement on the political side suddenly evaporated"
[@thetimes]
https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/1746260012102570234?s=46
That's a stupid, stupid thing to do.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/13/starmer-and-contemptuous-governing-class-dont-get-britain/
You know what, not going to complete that sentence.
Its still before the clocks go back, and who knows the media friendly to him might have fun with potential Nightmare Before Christmas headlines about if Labour win.
Going just after the clocks go back is dumb. So TSE is probably right, Sunak will go for 14 November then - he always does the worst possible option, so why break the habit of a lifetime?
> Like the AP guide says, precinct caucus meetings will convene no sooner than 7pm. However, process will start before that, of checking IDs, confirming people are Iowa registered voters AND registered Republicans - or registering them to vote as GOPers at the caucus.
> Also as noted, there will be speeches, on behalf of POTUS candidates, but also including nomination and election of delegates to Republican county conventions, separate from but still related to the presidential preference voting.
> One function of speeches, etc. is to extend the effective POTUS preference voting period. That is, somebody who shows up after 7pm BUT before the voting process is closed, should be good to go.
> Actual counting of votes can be cumbersome, depending on number of caucus attendees, voting method (blank piece of paper or some type of ballot), level of organization AND scrutiny.
> Plus considerable variations from county to county (99), city to city, township to township. Some will have hordes, others less so. Some will count efficiently and expeditiously; others less so.
> Lot will depend upon the caliber of Iowa State Republican Party officials and volunteers running the show in Des Moines, tabulating results and reporting same to mob of media (over 1k seeking credentials by last count).
We've got a few days in Paris next month, I think for once the scaffolding is going to be the thing to photograph.
Rate of return on the investment has to be known as well.
A million pound investment might sound better than a thousand pound investment but if that thousand pounds brings in a return of 30% per annum and the million pounds is lost it really, really isn't.
Investment isn't an economic virility symbol but a means to an end.
Like work, investment has to be effective to be worthwhile.
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1746238376922005950
Why ?
The experts who ran the Post Office. The experts who managed the Post Office for the Government. The expert politicians who oversaw the expertise.
The experts who were generalist bullshit artists - because an actual domain expert would have got “bogged down in the detail”.
Detail like noticing the software was shit. Or detail like the destruction of people en masse.
@Kishan_Devani does a huge amount of work on inter faith relations and is also a successful figure in the business community. I’m delighted Kishan is now Labour.
https://twitter.com/JonAshworth/status/1745753746548613620
1. You wouldn’t say a Clang is a “moon user”. “PB user” sounds sordid, potentially illegal. Just PBer.
2. “The British State currently consists of a Prime Minster and a Cabinet who take all the blame”. Wait. When did that start? The whole point of privatising the PO with one shareholder, the Primeminister is precisely so the government can blame somebody else, strikes, malfunctioning computers etc.
1. I liked Malmesburys piece. Regardless how they perform, or rotten to the core they are, they get gongs, bonuses, nice pay, and move on to one of the other jobs they can’t possibly fail in. It’s a system so obviously based on the higher echelons of the Civil Service you wouldn’t be surprised if they had a say in designing it, at the point, 1980s, they realised they could go in and out of public sector rather than staying in it their whole career.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/fujitsu-post-office-scandal-building-digital-uk/
4. “Matthew Goodwin, who needs no introduction to PB, has focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite.” At this point I suspected you are Philomena Cunk.
5. “The Road to Somewhere” homage to Hayek, or Bob Hope?
6. There’s no Elite Overproduction imo.
7. The New 10K is not “new” I think. It’s the old way - was it department of just 20k civil servants administrating the whole British Empire? Hence each country start from different place so elites therein will be different - only in UK they created it for themselves to go out of public service and back in again.
8. How can you talk about Elites without any mention of education?
4. Very good - it's definitely a bit Cunkish.
8. Also a very good point.
It’s the no1 issue hurting Biden in the polls.
So, let me get this straight: The Senate has reached a BIPARTISAN border deal, but “Speaker” Mike Johnson just said he refuses to even consider it. NONE of this is President Biden’s or Democrats’ fault. This is all on Republicans & it’s beneath contempt. They simply don’t care.
https://twitter.com/Victorshi2020/status/1746270669514699206
Schoolboy errors on a daily basis from Rishi’s government.
Remember, Vennells was *owed*. For all that magnificent, hard work. For being a Team Player. For being a Good Chap(ess).
The simple path is to sign the list. Be a cooperative minister. Not rock the boat.
And yes, they are guilty for going along with the consensus.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1746260876154335355
Say 4% of those polled.
For example, for the last 9 years it’s obvious to anyone taking interest that the PO scandal is a scandal with some horrible things done to victims, why has it taken so long for government to acknowledge this?
I say it’s the lobby system.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/fujitsu-s-head-lobbyist-during-post-office-scandal-set-up-tory-mps-pressure-group/ar-AA1mLcKp
HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS BEFORE NOW?
From (at)thespacemechanic on another platform:
“I’ve had an iPhone for about 15 years, and only last week did I learn that you can move the type cursor by holding down the space bar.”
Wut. No way.
https://twitter.com/TheRealHoarse/status/1746263128457761058
Incessant rain, dark and cold is what I've grown accustomed to.
Mandelson meanwhile still seems to have largely managed to evade much scrutiny for the fact that he was pivotal in waving through the Horizon IT system.
'Evidence to the probe shows the next day, on 10 December 1998, then business secretary Peter Mandelson said he believed the "only sensible choice" was to proceed with Horizon.
Lord Mandelson said in a letter that "the basic development work has been thoroughly evaluated by independent experts who have pronounced it viable, robust and of a design which should accommodate future technological developments".
He also warned that cancelling the contract would cause "political fallout" from Post Office closures and damage relations with Fujitsu, which he described as a "major investor in the UK over the past decade".'
https://news.sky.com/story/post-office-horizon-scandal-tony-blair-was-warned-system-could-be-flawed-when-he-was-prime-minsiter-13047150
To make it more fun we should all wear colonial attire, and eat chicken tikka masala
Some funny machinations in that constituency at present!
So yes the Dems share in the blame for any political gridlock.
I always said there was something a bit weird about him.
People who send gossip like that are weirdos though.
Drama over.
I would also say Mandelson when he was Business Secretary waving through the Horizon system in the first place despite concerns which even initially hesitated Blair is rather more significant to this story than the recommendation or not of Vennells for a minor honour before the PO scandal had fully come to light
Trump thanks Gambino Crime Family mobster, rat, and serial liar Sammy ‘the Bull’ Gravano, who confessed to 19 murders and countless kidnappings, armed robberies, burglaries & 1000s of other felonies, for vouching for him. Trump’s new character witness.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1746137387657252961
So had to take a photo of the 1mm manual and then zoom it up on my computer.
However, NOW I know how to turn it on. Thus, I win.
...
In a way.
Mandelbrot did what he did on the advice of officials. As did Davey. As did all the others, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem.
Note who comes well out of this. The “difficult” people.
(It has some similarities to the Chinese New Year, which I think is also worth sharing.)
Fun fact: I learned recently that Norman Rockwell's "Freedom from Want" painting, which shows a Thanksgiving meal, "caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_from_Want
(My favorite of those four paintings is, of course, the first, "Freedom of Speech".)
Tomorrow am.
Good evening everybody. I have to go have a bath so I'll respond now
@algarkirk, @Alphabet_Soup, @Benpointer, @bondegezou, @Casino_Royale, @Cleitophon, @darkage, @EPG, @Foxy, @Gardenwalker, @HYUFD, @Jim_Miller, @JosiasJessopJosiasJessop, @kyf_100, @Luckyguy1983, @Malmesbury, @Malmesbury:, @MattW, @Mexicanpete, @MoonRabbit, @Northern_Al, @OnlyLivingBoy, @Peter_the_Punter, @rcs1000, @Richard_Tyndall, @Richardr, @rottenborough, @Sandpit, @Sean_F, @slade, @Stuartinromford, @Sunil_Prasannan, @TheScreamingEagles : You made good points which I have noted: thank you for making them. Dealing with some of them as follows:
@Peter_the_Punter: Actually no I hadn't read Vilfredo Pareto, although I know his name in a statistical context.
@Cleitophon: fair enough. I'll try to do a piece on the 2024 Finnish presidential election later this month
@Jim_Miller: I shall try to read C. Wright Mills' "The Power Elite" and Robert Dahl's "Who Governs"
@Northern_Al, @bondegezou: My article and @Malmesbury's were written independently and ignorant of each other and I could not include your comments to that article as mine had already gone off. I apologise for making you repeat.
@Sunil_Prasannan: I think he's given a name in the novelization.
@slade: is your PhD published? I would like to read it.
@kyf_100: You might like to read "End Times" https://www.waterstones.com/book/end-times/peter-turchin//9780141999289
@rottenborough: thatnk you for: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/books/review/the-99-percent-matthew-stewart.html
@MoonRabbit: I checked my underpants and am not Philomena Cunk. Somebody once wrote a children's book which started "Big Bear was a big bear. Little Bear was a little bear". My sentence “...focussed on the new elite which he calls the New Elite" was a deliberate joke based on that.
@MoonRabbit: "Hasn’t taught me anything yet though". Fair enough. The intent was to present different definitions of "the elite". Given the size of the task it was obviously too short and covered too little. Best I could do in the time and size, apologies
This article was submitted as an early draft and unsourced. Illustrations, diagrams and points from your comments will be added and this expanded version presented to you backstage at a later date.
Once again, thank you: your contributions will make the work much better and has hopefully engaged your interest. Thanks again to @TSE and @rcs1000 for publishing it.
One big reason being, unwillingness of many House Republicans to (publicly) support such a deal, or such a deal-making Speaker.
And absent such commitment, no reason for Dems to believe, that Mis-Rule of Kevin McCarthy any better or worse OR any more stable, than the Reign of Error of Mike Johnson.
...
Oh.
The more likely explanations to me is that this is just normal cultural transmission of a salient generational divide, where one side appeals slightly more to younger / more-educated / more-successful people - and of course, this is far from true about everything in the "woke" bucket - no "elite" in America is hankering to hand the USA back to American Indians, for example.
Have you no shame? (I don't!)
[Crowd cheers!]
But the static remains there - busy in it's own aloof business. Fizzling about above your 20khz hearing.
FM reduced down to you by their Squealer's in the fourth estate - whether echoing or reverbing.
Have we done this yet?
Well that's it then! The final nail in Starmer's political coffin.
Disgraced former Prime Minister and alleged (really?) former national security liability Alexander Johnson (who you may remember shook off his minders to attend a party in Italy at the Villa of an alleged former KGB agent) condemns Starmer as a national security threat and friend to the Houthi rebels.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12956915/BORIS-JOHNSON-Sir-Keir-Saudis-Houthi-rebels-Starmer-Labour-security.html
You have been warned! (By Boris Johnson)
Certainly this is one of the complaints I hear from friends in the police force.
A couple of friends I had dinner with last week - one a former head of child psychiatric services for a big trust (having come up from being a pyshciatric nurse 30 years ago) and the other the head of pharmacy for a trust - both said that far too many of the nurses entering via the degree shcemes already have their eyes on career progression into mangerial positions and are not really interested in the basic day to day job of nursing.
At least an hour, before results trickle in from Ball, Sac, Packwood, Beverdale, Sexton, Cumming, Fertile, etc.
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for
Combining that with Turchin, the theory is that if you have an overproduction of elites, the surplus elites will attempt to signal their status with increasingly extreme luxury beliefs.
You're welcome to think it's wrong - I think it explains a great deal of what we've seen in the last decade or so.