Wow the Daily Hate has a devastating anti Starmer headline for tomorrow’s edition . Some drivel about him being on the side of woke !
As front pages go it surely must be one of the lamest.
This front page.
I've just looked at the Mail online and the headlines are about Storm Isha and a man playing a piano at Waterloo station. I looked for the Keir/woke story in the "sidebar of shame" but couldn't see anything so the Mail must have realised it's a rubbish story.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
Sorry to go off topic after such a header. But I can't get apprehensive about Storm Jocelyn. It's a bit like facing a Gladiator named Tristram.
The Economist published a survey a few years ago showing that in the USA ,hurricanes with female names caused significantly more deaths than male named ones . Given that male and female names are used alternatively the only explanation offered was that people were less scared of female named ones and so took less precautions
They should name them after famous dictators. You'd take Hurricane Hitler seriously.
Well, Hurricane Trump is only months away.
Here's the story of the Hurricane The one the authorities came to blame For something that he never done Put him in a prison cell but one Time he could have been The champion of the world...
Maybe that's who Dylan was singing about all along.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
The railway runs on the goodwill of staff. The companies know and benefit from that. The politicians have their heads too far up their behinds to see it.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
Sorry to go off topic after such a header. But I can't get apprehensive about Storm Jocelyn. It's a bit like facing a Gladiator named Tristram.
The Economist published a survey a few years ago showing that in the USA ,hurricanes with female names caused significantly more deaths than male named ones . Given that male and female names are used alternatively the only explanation offered was that people were less scared of female named ones and so took less precautions
They should name them after famous dictators. You'd take Hurricane Hitler seriously.
Well, Hurricane Trump is only months away.
Here's the story of the Hurricane The one the authorities came to blame For something that he never done Put him in a prison cell but one Time he could have been The champion of the world...
Maybe that's who Dylan was singing about all along.
Trump: I think I’m a lot sharper than Haley. I'd take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result. When I heard the word cognitive, you know, I’ve taken two of them now. One with Doc Ronny who is now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1749534483915669706
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
What a relief Shapps is now running Britain's defences.
This was the obvious outcome of the legislation - any strike subject to minimum service levels would be extended to the extent that the strike would be far worse than the original proposed option.
Plus with all workers still getting 40% of their pay (minimum) any strike could last a lot longer because losing money wouldn't be such a serious issue.
Wow the Daily Hate has a devastating anti Starmer headline for tomorrow’s edition . Some drivel about him being on the side of woke !
As front pages go it surely must be one of the lamest.
This front page.
I've just looked at the Mail online and the headlines are about Storm Isha and a man playing a piano at Waterloo station. I looked for the Keir/woke story in the "sidebar of shame" but couldn't see anything so the Mail must have realised it's a rubbish story.
Or that the viewership for its paper online has a different demographic from the relics who receive the hard copy paper?
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
I know its OT but a great and wonderful sport fact is this question - In what sport did the semi finalist in the 1938 world championships play the 2022 world champion in a professional match in 1992?
answer snooker - Fred Davis played 17 year old Ronnie O Sullivan in the 1992 grand prix and Ronnie won 5-1
That’s very cool. When O’Sullivan won the Masters snooker last week, he became both the youngest (19, in 1995) and the oldest winner of the tournament (48, in 2024).
Trump: I think I’m a lot sharper than Haley. I'd take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result. When I heard the word cognitive, you know, I’ve taken two of them now. One with Doc Ronny who is now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1749534483915669706
I mean I wouldn’t vote for this man purely on the basis of him being such a deplorable gobsh***. Irrespective of policy position. I find it amazing so many would,
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
More importantly (although perhaps not from Age UK’s perespective), the oral contraceptive is to be made available over the counter, something we should do in the UK too.
Trump: I think I’m a lot sharper than Haley. I'd take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result. When I heard the word cognitive, you know, I’ve taken two of them now. One with Doc Ronny who is now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor. https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1749534483915669706
I mean I wouldn’t vote for this man purely on the basis of him being such a deplorable gobsh***. Irrespective of policy position. I find it amazing so many would,
Well, yes. But this is part of why we find it so hard to judge his support or understand his supporters. It just seems irrational to us. Its not a great base for betting.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Good and topical piece from Mark Sumner in the Daily Kos about the consequences of De Santis withdrawing:
"Like many of her vanished peers, Haley is talking about traditional Republican policies and angling to be just enough different from Trump that she maintains a pretense of being a not Trump, but she’s also trying to make it clear she’s not anti-Trump. Because she can’t afford to offend his supporters. Anyone else, sure. But not Trump supporters.
This is a strategy with a highly technical name. It’s called losing."
Trump will be confirmed as the GOP nominee for President by tomorrow morning when Hayley is highly likely to quit having been thumped in New Hampshire. I can't see her wanting to go on to be humiliated in her own state of South Carolina.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
They have been built round here, but they can’t be sold!
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
Shades of the Matrix there. “Guns. Lots of guns.”
I don't think the housing problem is down to people using large numbers of houses and discarding them like road side litter.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
It is indeed magical thinking to believe it is free. But the more important question is it a good use of the cost. I personally believe that facilitating human contact, interaction and even getting out is likely to do a lot more good for the elderly and alienated than another billion into the bottomless pit of social care.
How do you verify the age of someone, either way: an adult pretending to be a child, or a child pretending to be an adult, and how do you do it in a timely manner give the numbers coming over?
Dental imaging in the best way but the guardian campaigned against that
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
They have been built round here, but they can’t be sold!
A lack of demand, or a problem with the buildings themselves that stops them being sold?
If it’s a lack of demand, any economist will tell you a very well-known solution to a that!
“But is taking care of the average guy and breaking the system the same thing?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Because they’re all in it for themselves.”
“And if you break the system, what does that look like?”
“Accountability,” he said..
We (the world) do have a problem with accountability. Anyone here want to say that Michelle Mone should be let off because she a is Proper Person, A Sound Chap(ess) and that if we chase her, then no one will do the job next time?
Breaking the system doesn't lead to accountability.
Holding people to account leads to accountability.
Such as laws on bribery - enforce them and extend them. The problem in the US, is that in politics, bribery has been legalised. By making campaign finance strangely outside the very strict laws that apply to other people - see Finance.
And when people try an fix elections, commit perjury, incite riots etc, prosecute them and send them to jail for the term proscribed in law. That's accountability.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
The main issue here (re my 10 issue lisst below) that it is by no means a given that sunak has sufficient chewing gum, sellotape and string to keep the tories from unexpectedly falling apart before 2025. And the housing market is one source of electoral danger given the number of people exposed to uncovered debt in their houses and mortgage rates.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
Few have a 100% mortgage
The loan value is also impacted by inflation - it’s just wrong to compare real house prices to the nominal value of the loan
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
It is indeed magical thinking to believe it is free. But the more important question is it a good use of the cost. I personally believe that facilitating human contact, interaction and even getting out is likely to do a lot more good for the elderly and alienated than another billion into the bottomless pit of social care.
The Irish experiment will be interesting.
If you talk to tradesmen, they will tell you that long chats with the elderly are a part of fixing the boiler etc.
At my eldest daughter's school they have a charity thing, where 6th formers pair up with local elderly people. Visit them on a weekly basis, have a chat & a cup of tea.
Looks like Hunt will have around 20 billion to spend in election bribes .
Will he spend it all now or wait and use some for an autumn statement .
Not really. Yes, the numbers for December were lower by a chunky £7bn but the year to date figure remains the fourth highest on record. And we are still borrowing more than £100bn a year from our kids to maintain the consumption we think we "deserve". Its immoral and wrong.
But our politics is so morally bankrupt you are probably right.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
They have been built round here, but they can’t be sold!
A lack of demand, or a problem with the buildings themselves that stops them being sold?
If it’s a lack of demand, any economist will tell you a very well-known solution to a that!
Two solutions, aren't there?
1. Cut prices. 2. Slow down building rates so that supply falls to meet reduced demand.
And one of the reasons that UK housing is in the state it's in is that housebuilders can and do go for option 2.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
The main issue here (re my 10 issue lisst below) that it is by no means a given that sunak has sufficient chewing gum, sellotape and string to keep the tories from unexpectedly falling apart before 2025. And the housing market is one source of electoral danger given the number of people exposed to uncovered debt in their houses and mortgage rates.
Making housing more affordable is the number one issue facing the country at the moment. Very, very few people are affected by negative equity unless prices totally crash (in money terms, rather than real terms). Announcing two or three million homes to be built, is the best possible chance Sunak has of a recovery in the south of England.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations. Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
They have been built round here, but they can’t be sold!
A lack of demand, or a problem with the buildings themselves that stops them being sold?
If it’s a lack of demand, any economist will tell you a very well-known solution to a that!
Two solutions, aren't there?
1. Cut prices. 2. Slow down building rates so that supply falls to meet reduced demand.
And one of the reasons that UK housing is in the state it's in is that housebuilders can and do go for option 2.
And the reason for that is *local* monopolies on house building. When one or two big house builders in an area are responsible for 95% of house building... Adam Smith and all that.
Yes, it is convenient to only deal with one big company when building a new estate. No, it isn't that much more efficient. Oh, and while we are at it, enforce the bloody building standards.
Looks like Hunt will have around 20 billion to spend in election bribes .
Will he spend it all now or wait and use some for an autumn statement .
Not really. Yes, the numbers for December were lower by a chunky £7bn but the year to date figure remains the fourth highest on record. And we are still borrowing more than £100bn a year from our kids to maintain the consumption we think we "deserve". Its immoral and wrong.
But our politics is so morally bankrupt you are probably right.
How in God's name does Hunt or anyone else think he has £20bn to give away when borrowing costs are so high? I thought Hunt was supposed to be the adult in the room.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
They have been built round here, but they can’t be sold!
A lack of demand, or a problem with the buildings themselves that stops them being sold?
If it’s a lack of demand, any economist will tell you a very well-known solution to a that!
Two solutions, aren't there?
1. Cut prices. 2. Slow down building rates so that supply falls to meet reduced demand.
And one of the reasons that UK housing is in the state it's in is that housebuilders can and do go for option 2.
If they’re built already, then it’s only option 1.
Yes, option 2 is the wider medium-term issue, which is why planning permission needs to be time-limited, and individual self-building encouraged by the planning system and finance sector.
Wow the Daily Hate has a devastating anti Starmer headline for tomorrow’s edition . Some drivel about him being on the side of woke !
As front pages go it surely must be one of the lamest.
This front page.
I've just looked at the Mail online and the headlines are about Storm Isha and a man playing a piano at Waterloo station. I looked for the Keir/woke story in the "sidebar of shame" but couldn't see anything so the Mail must have realised it's a rubbish story.
Unfortunately not - doubling down, actually trbling. Yet this is the RNLI and NT they are talking about ...
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
It is indeed magical thinking to believe it is free. But the more important question is it a good use of the cost. I personally believe that facilitating human contact, interaction and even getting out is likely to do a lot more good for the elderly and alienated than another billion into the bottomless pit of social care.
The Irish experiment will be interesting.
What is astonishing to me is how few shops and local facilities there are. A housing estate of 1000 might get a shop after 10 years. They were building the biggest regeneration project in London, Barking Riverside, for 16 years before it got a shop (see article below from 2015). Now it is a new town with a railway station and there are two co-ops, one of which is in a portacabin, serving the builders (on the biggest construction project in London) as well as residents. Forced to 'do something' the regeneration company has put some pop up simulacra street food outlets. Developers complain it is too hard to build commercial, it is never viable. Local shops that do exist are being wiped out due to class E planning rules that allow them to change to any other use you want or even residential.
Projects of similar density in Europe have multiple shops and services in close proximity. I think the question about 'cash' and 'contactless' is actually a distraction. The issue is that the state should be subsidising value added commercial/community uses and protecting it from speculative conversion as what I have described above is evidence of market failure and representative of a decline in social value.
Good and topical piece from Mark Sumner in the Daily Kos about the consequences of De Santis withdrawing:
"Like many of her vanished peers, Haley is talking about traditional Republican policies and angling to be just enough different from Trump that she maintains a pretense of being a not Trump, but she’s also trying to make it clear she’s not anti-Trump. Because she can’t afford to offend his supporters. Anyone else, sure. But not Trump supporters.
This is a strategy with a highly technical name. It’s called losing."
Trump will be confirmed as the GOP nominee for President by tomorrow morning when Hayley is highly likely to quit having been thumped in New Hampshire. I can't see her wanting to go on to be humiliated in her own state of South Carolina.
Now it is down to the courts.
Just about every candidate was too scared to call him what he is. Just before each dropped out, one or two expressed slightly less velied criticisms - and then dropped out and endorsed him. With varying degrees of enthusiasm.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
The main issue here (re my 10 issue lisst below) that it is by no means a given that sunak has sufficient chewing gum, sellotape and string to keep the tories from unexpectedly falling apart before 2025. And the housing market is one source of electoral danger given the number of people exposed to uncovered debt in their houses and mortgage rates.
Making housing more affordable is the number one issue facing the country at the moment. Very, very few people are affected by negative equity unless prices totally crash (in money terms, rather than real terms). Announcing two or three million homes to be built, is the best possible chance Sunak has of a recovery in the south of England.
How? Who? Not enough brickies, no council houses. He and his party really have bricked themselves into a corner.
I hope those of you who were bemoaning the need for an energy price subsidy - how it would not improve energy use behaviours etc. - will reflect on this:
More than 2m UK prepay meter users to be cut off from gas or electric this winter
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
In the article I read on this point, the average seller last year made £100,000 profit on their sale.
“But is taking care of the average guy and breaking the system the same thing?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Because they’re all in it for themselves.”
“And if you break the system, what does that look like?”
“Accountability,” he said..
We (the world) do have a problem with accountability. Anyone here want to say that Michelle Mone should be let off because she a is Proper Person, A Sound Chap(ess) and that if we chase her, then no one will do the job next time?
Breaking the system doesn't lead to accountability.
Holding people to account leads to accountability.
Such as laws on bribery - enforce them and extend them. The problem in the US, is that in politics, bribery has been legalised. By making campaign finance strangely outside the very strict laws that apply to other people - see Finance.
And when people try an fix elections, commit perjury, incite riots etc, prosecute them and send them to jail for the term proscribed in law. That's accountability.
That point was put to the guy in the story. It barely gave him pause.
Looks like Hunt will have around 20 billion to spend in election bribes .
Will he spend it all now or wait and use some for an autumn statement .
Not really. Yes, the numbers for December were lower by a chunky £7bn but the year to date figure remains the fourth highest on record. And we are still borrowing more than £100bn a year from our kids to maintain the consumption we think we "deserve". Its immoral and wrong.
But our politics is so morally bankrupt you are probably right.
I wonder how Labour will respond to these likely tax cuts . IMO the best way is to say that with crumbling public services that should be the priority for now and down the line with a growing economy the tax burden could be lowered then.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
It is indeed magical thinking to believe it is free. But the more important question is it a good use of the cost. I personally believe that facilitating human contact, interaction and even getting out is likely to do a lot more good for the elderly and alienated than another billion into the bottomless pit of social care.
The Irish experiment will be interesting.
What is astonishing to me is how few shops and local facilities there are. A housing estate of 1000 might get a shop after 10 years. They were building the biggest regeneration project in London, Barking Riverside, for 16 years before it got a shop (see article below from 2015). Now it is a new town with a railway station and there are two co-ops, one of which is in a portacabin, serving the builders (on the biggest construction project in London) as well as residents. Forced to 'do something' the regeneration company has put some pop up simulacra street food outlets. Developers complain it is too hard to build commercial, it is never viable. Local shops that do exist are being wiped out due to class E planning rules that allow them to change to any other use you want or even residential.
Projects of similar density in Europe have multiple shops and services in close proximity. I think the question about 'cash' and 'contactless' is actually a distraction. The issue is that the state should be subsidising value added commercial/community uses and protecting it from speculative conversion as what I have described above is evidence of market failure and representative of a decline in social value.
The flip side is new developments where the local planners often mandate the ground floor is commercial. And often ends up boarded up for years after the flats above are occupied.
We have some of those in a wealthy area of West London.
The basic problem is that the value of shops has fallen massively. A physical premises is worth a fraction of what it used to be.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
In the article I read on this point, the average seller last year made £100,000 profit on their sale.
Butr didn't it also say that most of them had to pay more for their new house so it didn't actually appear at this moment in cash? (If it is the same article.)
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
The main issue here (re my 10 issue lisst below) that it is by no means a given that sunak has sufficient chewing gum, sellotape and string to keep the tories from unexpectedly falling apart before 2025. And the housing market is one source of electoral danger given the number of people exposed to uncovered debt in their houses and mortgage rates.
Making housing more affordable is the number one issue facing the country at the moment. Very, very few people are affected by negative equity unless prices totally crash (in money terms, rather than real terms). Announcing two or three million homes to be built, is the best possible chance Sunak has of a recovery in the south of England.
How? Who? Not enough brickies, no council houses. He and his party really have bricked themselves into a corner.
The problem is actually that supporting ever increasing housing prices has been the defacto policy for multiple governments, now.
If you granted permission for several million properties, to a range of builders (not local monopolies), with a time limit on completion, then a lot would get built.
The problem is the vested interests against this happening.
Excellent. We should do the same. The assault on cash is an assault on the elderly and the marginalised in society.
A group like Age UK should take this up.
Plenty of older people also struggle to count out the correct cash - nothing more awkward than informing a customer that they are £5.20 short while doing your best to help them along.
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Then there are older people for whom chip and pin is easier, and others for whom cash is easier.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
I think it's fair in essential services like supermarkets, Post Offices, pharmacies, as in Ireland.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
Part of the problem is the belief that "Demanding company does X" has no cost. Regulations are free, aren't they? Meanwhile, the alt-banks have no branches at all. Online shops have no cash to manage.
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
It is indeed magical thinking to believe it is free. But the more important question is it a good use of the cost. I personally believe that facilitating human contact, interaction and even getting out is likely to do a lot more good for the elderly and alienated than another billion into the bottomless pit of social care.
The Irish experiment will be interesting.
What is astonishing to me is how few shops and local facilities there are. A housing estate of 1000 might get a shop after 10 years. They were building the biggest regeneration project in London, Barking Riverside, for 16 years before it got a shop (see article below from 2015). Now it is a new town with a railway station and there are two co-ops, one of which is in a portacabin, serving the builders (on the biggest construction project in London) as well as residents. Forced to 'do something' the regeneration company has put some pop up simulacra street food outlets. Developers complain it is too hard to build commercial, it is never viable. Local shops that do exist are being wiped out due to class E planning rules that allow them to change to any other use you want or even residential.
Projects of similar density in Europe have multiple shops and services in close proximity. I think the question about 'cash' and 'contactless' is actually a distraction. The issue is that the state should be subsidising value added commercial/community uses and protecting it from speculative conversion as what I have described above is evidence of market failure and representative of a decline in social value.
The flip side is new developments where the local planners often mandate the ground floor is commercial. And often ends up boarded up for years after the flats above are occupied.
We have some of those in a wealthy area of West London.
The basic problem is that the value of shops has fallen massively. A physical premises is worth a fraction of what it used to be.
And business rates haven't changed to reflect that either.
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
In the article I read on this point, the average seller last year made £100,000 profit on their sale.
Before doing what? Going to live at the Premier Inn for the rest of their lives? (Nothing wrong with the Premier inn, that said.)
"Profit" must be seen in the context of any potential "loss" while buying another property.
The coming tax cuts are going to be huge. They will be a very strong signal that the Tories believe they have little chance of winning the election. Part of me, a very small part admittedly, hopes they have to deal with the consequences of putting party before country once again.
“But is taking care of the average guy and breaking the system the same thing?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Because they’re all in it for themselves.”
“And if you break the system, what does that look like?”
“Accountability,” he said..
We (the world) do have a problem with accountability. Anyone here want to say that Michelle Mone should be let off because she a is Proper Person, A Sound Chap(ess) and that if we chase her, then no one will do the job next time?
Breaking the system doesn't lead to accountability.
Holding people to account leads to accountability.
Such as laws on bribery - enforce them and extend them. The problem in the US, is that in politics, bribery has been legalised. By making campaign finance strangely outside the very strict laws that apply to other people - see Finance.
And when people try an fix elections, commit perjury, incite riots etc, prosecute them and send them to jail for the term proscribed in law. That's accountability.
That point was put to the guy in the story. It barely gave him pause.
This story seemed like an example of someone driven to an absurd position by politics, the idea that trump will lead to more 'accountability' is like 'queers for palestine'. People go on about Jan 6th as evidence of fascism but there is also something transcendental about the appeal of Trump as leader. The idea that things are so broken only one person can possibly fix it and everything that came before must be swept away.
How do you verify the age of someone, either way: an adult pretending to be a child, or a child pretending to be an adult, and how do you do it in a timely manner give the numbers coming over?
Dental imaging in the best way but the guardian campaigned against that
1) we are in a recession 2) inflation has gone up 3) in April new brexit checks will come in boosting inflation and jeopardizing 46% of farmers accelerating the recession 4) 60.000 companies are in financial distress and many will cave accellerating a recession 5) key policy areas like child care and nhs waiting lists are failing 6) once spring comes boat will kick off big time 7) house prices are in free fall and due to inflation, interest rates will stay up 8) polls are widening, rather than narrowing 9) the many arms of the Parliamentary group are at war with themselves 10) Sunak's favourability is at Truss and Johnson level at their worst, while Starmers are not glowing but respectable
Here is my take away: things could very well suddenly unravel for the tories. MPs start taking jobs kicking off byelections, there may be defections left and right, there may be letters and leadership contests. It is not under any circumstances a given that Sunak can keep this show on the road till November. Events will take over. Slowly at first and then all of a sudden.
Sorry Cleitophon, that's rubbish. House prices are not in freefall:
A minor 2.1% correction in house prices after double-digit percentage rises in house prices is not even a proper correction, let alone freefall.
Try inflation adjusting those numbers my friend.
Yes and its still not freefall.
Over any reasonable view of time, house prices are massively, massively overvalued relative to wages. House prices are higher today than they were at the start of 2020, let alone 2010 or 2000.
But not on a supply and demand level, because our supply has been artificially capped relative to our rising population demands.
Look, through 2022 and 2023 we had double digit inflation. Even at stagnant house prices that means that your house lost 10% in value in real terms.. money is like a treadmill that goes ever faster or an elastic measuring tape that just keeps getting longer and longer. It is not an objective unit against which to assess value. And at 2.1% decline in housing and money still inflating at 4% ... that is still a 6% drop per annum. In the real world that is substantial. And it matters not that houses are subjectively over priced, because people are objectively tied into mortgages with those numbers on them. What it means is that people are unable to sell without losses to cover commitments and are for all intents and purposes mortgage serfs... unable.to move. Divorce coming though... you stay together or take the hit.
10% down, 40% still to go in large parts of the country. Build more houses, lots more houses.
The main issue here (re my 10 issue lisst below) that it is by no means a given that sunak has sufficient chewing gum, sellotape and string to keep the tories from unexpectedly falling apart before 2025. And the housing market is one source of electoral danger given the number of people exposed to uncovered debt in their houses and mortgage rates.
Making housing more affordable is the number one issue facing the country at the moment. Very, very few people are affected by negative equity unless prices totally crash (in money terms, rather than real terms). Announcing two or three million homes to be built, is the best possible chance Sunak has of a recovery in the south of England.
How? Who? Not enough brickies, no council houses. He and his party really have bricked themselves into a corner.
The problem is actually that supporting ever increasing housing prices has been the defacto policy for multiple governments, now.
If you granted permission for several million properties, to a range of builders (not local monopolies), with a time limit on completion, then a lot would get built.
The problem is the vested interests against this happening.
Yes and no. But a lot _is_ being built. Indeed the assumption for planning today is that it will be granted unless there are particular concerns and even then an appeal to the SoS will often result in the overturn of the original decision.
Look at West Cambourne and many like it throughout the country.
The issue is affordability. And of course profitability. Some of the housebuilders' profits have been slashed, which has resulted in fewer units being built, while the price of the cheapest units in a typical development can be as high as £250k.
Some of us did point out at the time this law was a paper tiger.
New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations. Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
“We are going to strike if you enforce your rights under the law”
Hmmh.
Strikes are often in reaction to offers in pay and conditions. Such offers are also allowed by rights under the law. Indeed, if the employer is trying to do something not under the law, you don’t bother with a strike, you just sue them.
So, there is nothing unusual about strike action or threatened strike action in response to the enforcement of discretionary rights under the law.
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New laws to protect passengers have been left in “tatters” after it has emerged that no rail operators will use them during strikes next week.
London North Eastern Railway (LNER) had previously said that it would seek to enforce the new minimum service laws but has now told Aslef, the driver’s union, that it is rescinding its decision.
Train drivers at 16 rail companies will stage a wave of one-day walkouts from January 30, the first since the new rules came into force.
Under the law, rail companies could require striking staff to keep working to provide 40 per cent of timetabled services. However, not a single operator will enforce the law next week, the introduction of which had raised fears about worsening industrial relations.
Aslef had announced five extra days of strike action in response to LNER when its plans to implement the law became clear. It has now cancelled them.
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act was announced by in 2022 by Grant Shapps, then the transport secretary, and was heralded as a means of preventing serious disruption to passengers during strikes.
At the time of the announcement, the government said: “That is why we are introducing this legislation, to keep Britain moving, ensure people can get to work, earn their own living and grow the economy.”
Ministers insisted last week that the decision on whether to use the legislation falls directly to the train companies, but said that the expectation is that employers would use the regulations if it was deemed appropriate.
The strikes from January 30 to February 5 were considered a litmus test of the new law’s effectiveness.
A source told The Times the law had been “left in tatters and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.
They added: “Three transport secretaries said this law would solve issues for passengers, yet rail operators are free to completely ignore it. For them doing so is a sensible decision to help industrial relations but completely undermines what the ministers’ have said.”
The move by LNER is particularly embarrassing as it has been under direct government control since 2018 and is viewed as the flagship rail service.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lners-climb-down-leaves-new-strike-laws-in-tatters-dh5smsgs6
A group like Age UK should take this up.
The one the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one
Time he could have been
The champion of the world...
Maybe that's who Dylan was singing about all along.
Trump: I think I’m a lot sharper than Haley. I'd take an aptitude test and it would be my result against her result. When I heard the word cognitive, you know, I’ve taken two of them now. One with Doc Ronny who is now a fantastic, you know, White House doctor.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1749534483915669706
PLEASE
Plus with all workers still getting 40% of their pay (minimum) any strike could last a lot longer because losing money wouldn't be such a serious issue.
Ted Johnson sincerely thought he wanted a uniter not a divider. It didn’t last long.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/22/new-hampshire-primary-voter-00136850
.. “And trust me, the guy’s a pig, he’s a womanizer — arrogant a-----e,” Johnson said of Trump. “But I need somebody that’s going to go in and lead, and I need somebody that’s going to take care of the average guy.”
“But is taking care of the average guy and breaking the system the same thing?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Because they’re all in it for themselves.”
“And if you break the system, what does that look like?”
“Accountability,” he said..
Paying through contactless/chip and pin is easier, and has the added control of a POS system that tells you exactly how much you are parting with. Reduces the risk of people taking advantage.
The only difficulty is overcoming habit. Perhaps a better, and far cheaper, intervention would be free training from banks, and for all shops over a certain size to have a nominated individual trained to provide assistance.
Hence, allow for both.
And it's not just habit: over a million adults in the UK do not have bank accounts, for whatever reason. A cashless society is going to really bu**er them up. Also, some people find chip-and-pin a terrible way of budgeting, as they have no idea how much they have left in the account. If you've got to make a twenty-quid note last two days, it's much easier to budget.
As ever, it's relatively rich, intelligent people thinking: "This system works fine for me!", and ignoring there are others for whom it does not work.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ahern-defends-having-no-bank-account-1.993441
Yes, the ex-Taoiseach (at least claimed) to have no bank account while in office. As minister for finance.
Elsewhere? It's an expensive Big Government intervention to aid the vulnerable - entirely inconsistent with government policy in many other areas.
"Like many of her vanished peers, Haley is talking about traditional Republican policies and angling to be just enough different from Trump that she maintains a pretense of being a not Trump, but she’s also trying to make it clear she’s not anti-Trump. Because she can’t afford to offend his supporters. Anyone else, sure. But not Trump supporters.
This is a strategy with a highly technical name. It’s called losing."
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/22/2218814/-DeSantis-dropping-out-is-unlikely-to-do-anything-except-confirm-the-Trump-cult?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_4&pm_medium=web
Trump will be confirmed as the GOP nominee for President by tomorrow morning when Hayley is highly likely to quit having been thumped in New Hampshire. I can't see her wanting to go on to be humiliated in her own state of South Carolina.
Now it is down to the courts.
Where does SKS stand on minimum service levels?
“Guns. Lots of guns.”
The regulations puts on another cost burden, relative to the competition.
If people want to have a cash counter Post Office/Shop in every village, that's fine. But the truth is that someone needs to pay for it. Believing that some regulation or the other will pay for it all out of "fat cats pockets" (or some such) is magical thinking.
The Irish experiment will be interesting.
If it’s a lack of demand, any economist will tell you a very well-known solution to a that!
Will he spend it all now or wait and use some for an autumn statement .
Breaking the system doesn't lead to accountability.
Holding people to account leads to accountability.
Such as laws on bribery - enforce them and extend them. The problem in the US, is that in politics, bribery has been legalised. By making campaign finance strangely outside the very strict laws that apply to other people - see Finance.
And when people try an fix elections, commit perjury, incite riots etc, prosecute them and send them to jail for the term proscribed in law. That's accountability.
The loan value is also impacted by inflation - it’s just wrong to compare real house prices to the nominal value of the loan
At my eldest daughter's school they have a charity thing, where 6th formers pair up with local elderly people. Visit them on a weekly basis, have a chat & a cup of tea.
But our politics is so morally bankrupt you are probably right.
1. Cut prices.
2. Slow down building rates so that supply falls to meet reduced demand.
And one of the reasons that UK housing is in the state it's in is that housebuilders can and do go for option 2.
Hmmh.
Yes, it is convenient to only deal with one big company when building a new estate. No, it isn't that much more efficient. Oh, and while we are at it, enforce the bloody building standards.
Yes, option 2 is the wider medium-term issue, which is why planning permission needs to be time-limited, and individual self-building encouraged by the planning system and finance sector.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/23/i-was-getting-older-and-feeling-clueless-when-a-quote-about-the-afternoon-of-life-inspired-my-reinvention
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12993919/keir-starmer-woke-rnli-national-trust-brendan-o-neill.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12994083/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Tories-braver-culture-wars.html
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/17/no-cafe-pub-doctor-londons-most-isolated-suburb-barking-riverside
Projects of similar density in Europe have multiple shops and services in close proximity. I think the question about 'cash' and 'contactless' is actually a distraction. The issue is that the state should be subsidising value added commercial/community uses and protecting it from speculative conversion as what I have described above is evidence of market failure and representative of a decline in social value.
I expect Haley won't now be much different.
It's back...
More than 2m UK prepay meter users to be cut off from gas or electric this winter
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/jan/23/uk-prepay-meter-users-cut-off-gas-electric-this-winter
It barely gave him pause.
We have some of those in a wealthy area of West London.
The basic problem is that the value of shops has fallen massively. A physical premises is worth a fraction of what it used to be.
I know the atmosphere is very thin on Mars and rain is not so much of an issue, but I have seen The Martian: what about the sandstorms?
If you granted permission for several million properties, to a range of builders (not local monopolies), with a time limit on completion, then a lot would get built.
The problem is the vested interests against this happening.
"Profit" must be seen in the context of any potential "loss" while buying another property.
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms
The biggest difference is that the atmosphere is 1% of that on Earth. So a 60mph wind gives you a mild push.
People go on about Jan 6th as evidence of fascism but there is also something transcendental about the appeal of Trump as leader.
The idea that things are so broken only one person can possibly fix it and everything that came before must be swept away.
Look at West Cambourne and many like it throughout the country.
The issue is affordability. And of course profitability. Some of the housebuilders' profits have been slashed, which has resulted in fewer units being built, while the price of the cheapest units in a typical development can be as high as £250k.
NEW THREAD
So, there is nothing unusual about strike action or threatened strike action in response to the enforcement of discretionary rights under the law.